


Going to Marrakesh

by Edmondia_Dantes



Category: Death Note
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edmondia_Dantes/pseuds/Edmondia_Dantes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not right and it's not nice to try to kill the same thing twice. A divergence fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Devil's Dance Floor

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Going to Marrakesh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/876240) by [Edmondia_Dantes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edmondia_Dantes/pseuds/Edmondia_Dantes), [jyalika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jyalika/pseuds/jyalika)



> Yes, it's another one of those 'make things better!' fics. But since it's me, it's slow-moving, rambling, and rather strange. Title art by the lovely and talented Jyalika, whose translation of this fic can be found above.

  


It starts with a name, drawn in and laughing, and continues with a death and the glaring starkness of an elaborately calligraphed letter on a blazingly white screen, and for the first time, he feels something other than smug superiority and endless, endless boredom. It's always been too easy, and now that it's not, he doesn't know how to handle it.

Light Yagami pulls on his hair and grits his teeth for the first time since the age of five, and spends the rest of that night in a quietly stewing rage that leaves him irritable and impatient the next day, even though he knows he needs to be calm. That calm is such a stretch to find is an unpleasant and unfamiliar sensation, and when he catches a glimpse of the newspapers screeching out L's challenge, he forces himself to buy one and see how the world is taking the news. And then he laughs and wonders why he bothered, because they're all idiots, but at least his supporters are still loyal, at least some people recognize that a new god is being born.

_Sheep,_ he thinks and does not say, _stupid worthless fools but I'll save them all and they'll learn, they'll learn, they'll learn someday._

Sixty-four. He takes it like the compliment and accusation that it is, and doesn't even blink at the price he pays, although his heart beats triphammer-time for the first moment or two of golden, shining risk. Knife-edge dancing is something new, but thrilling, and his breath freezes in his chest when the truth is a weapon leveled at his throat. He stumbles a little, recovers his steps, and tries to center, but it's hard with him so close and so dangerous, so different from what he'd expected that he's disgusted at his own disconcertion.

_I hate you and I'll kill you and when I will I'll laugh but for now, for now, for now let's play._

He holds the Death Note in his hands and laughs and screams and rages and relishes the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Pen twirling in his fingertips, he smiles across the tennis court and the tea-table and learns how to dance with a partner, knife-smiles hidden behind long bangs and the whisper of friendship that's a complete lie for them both. Under the watchful eye of his father and the investigation team, he plays the perfect role: helpful companion, attentive friend, innocent of innocents, and even though he's always careful not to give himself away, he can tell that L is laughing at his show.

"Ryuuga," he says softly, and tilts his head and smiles in greeting and fades softly away from his groupies, all polite apology and calmness, and L's answering smile is a lie matching his own. "Want to study together tonight?"

"Of course, Yagami-kun," comes the soft answer, and later over tea and cakes they parry and toss around theories and completely ignore the looming project due in the history of criminal justice that they're supposed to be working on together. Even though it makes him feel itchy and irritated just to look at him, makes him feel like attacking him with a hairbrush and an iron, he finds himself looking beyond the eccentricity and piles of creamer and stacked sugar and wondering how much of this is real and how much is just another veil for whatever truth is lying behind his eyes.

When L leaves him with a sly smile and a "Goodnight, Kira," whispered in a language not his own, he knows it would be bad form to slam his head into the door, but the temptation is almost too much to resist, and the one time he nearly let it slip, L intercepted him so quickly it felt like a slap in the face and left his wrist stinging for an hour afterwards.

Even his shinigami thinks he's crazy these days, and he throws his head back and laughs, because this is a game and the only other person who knows it is L himself, should-be pawn and would-be conqueror, but he thinks of a fresh corpse slumped over on national television and has to wonder if just maybe... but no, and that's almost a shame, because if they weren't at each other's throats they'd be beautiful together, a study in contrasts and echoes painted in human form.

They'd brushed skin and hair more than once, and even if he weren't seventeen years old and more intrigued with another human being than he'd ever been before, the thought of an affair would have been sweet, all the sweeter for the danger implied. But watching L makes him sick inside, all of that potential wasted on his own twisted sense of justice, and even though the Note is the best thing that's ever happened to him, even though that's the only reason L even gave him a second glance, he wants to beat him into shape, make him into a proper adversary and force him to drop the mockery that drips in every wide-eyed smile and the endless crunch of sugar cubes, toppling from their pile to scatter on crumb-laden china and plop into rapidly-cooling tea.

He's never felt strongly enough to hate someone before, and the feeling is exhilarating and a little addictive, and the only thing that will ever be able to top the thrill of the fight will be the bliss of victory.

In his dreams, L dies in his arms, and he laughs and laughs and laughs and kisses his closed eyelids and thinks _I win I win I win I won and you lost and I won_ and wakes up in the morning, gleeful and laughing enough to make Ryuk laugh too, and maybe, just maybe he's going a little bit crazy with the joy of it all.

Misa tumbles into his life in a haze of frustration and a tangle of black lace, but she's attentive and obedient and pretty enough to make a good excuse of things, and he's almost incoherent with rage when she's snapped up right under his nose by a thieving bastard who makes a mockery of the word justice.

He steps into custody with a plot and a plan and an act pasted on, and murmurs "Kinky" when L fastens his hands behind his back - because they're friends, and because he laughed and said it would be weird if one of the team members did it, and that he trusted L to do the right thing, and maybe it's just a chance to relish this closeness because he might be forced into letting it slip away - and L chuckles, low and warm and close enough that it ruffles the hair on the back of his neck, and he's going to be so fucking bored from now on unless L makes a habit of talking to him, and should he steal a kiss to ensure it? No, best not - Misa, after all, could not be ignored, for all that she'd been caught up and bound and still managed to play her role. She's a good pawn, and L is a good player, and so he closes his eyes and walks into the cell without complaint and a small, resigned smile for the cameras and his father and the team, and for L who sees right through it.


	2. Playmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The change.

"Any news?" he asks somewhere in the middle of the third day.

"None that I'd give you," comes the predictable response, and he smiles into the camera and gives a little laugh and toss of his head.

"Thought so." He blinks and looks down, lets his lips curl softly downward and his brow furrow, the picture of a concerned teenager trying to hide his concern and not quite succeeding. "How's my father holding up?"

"As expected."

Perfectly timed, he bites his lip and looks to the side. "Ah, I see," he says, just loudly enough that the microphones will pick it up. "And... mom and Sayu are still okay?"

"They're being watched for their own safety," L tells him, and he lets his annoyance show for a moment before schooling his features into a pleasant mask - no sense in changing his behavior now, because he knows suspicion is rising with every moment that drags by.

"I understand," he says, as though he's half-reluctant about it, as though he hasn't known that they're always being watched, just in case. Idly, he wonders if, in L's place, he would be just as paranoid, and suspects it could be true - after all, his self-proclaimed first friend is planning to kill him. "Thanks, Ryuuzaki."

These little interludes are the only thing keeping him entertained - the cell is stultifying and despite Ryuk's innovative contortioning, he can almost feel his own brain cells melting from inactivity. He keeps up a healthy fantasy life involving the thousands of different ways he'll kill L, the future of the world as he guides it along the road to perfection, and the thought of a solid dinner - predictably, all he's eaten in forever is a thin protein-rich soup, sipped through a straw.

One boring afternoon, they debate theology, and predictably, L is an atheist. Light smiles and dreams of showing him God even as he considers the finer points of Shinto and Buddhism and monotheism and eventually winds up declaring himself agnostic. It's a lie, but a reasonable one, and he won't worship himself even though everyone else should.

He'll miss his mind when he's gone, but it will be worth it to win, and sometimes in dreams he reaches for him and kills him slowly, softly, careful and beautiful and delicately orchestrated, because he deserves only the best - not like a common criminal, because even though he's a heretic, he's the most lovely blasphemer he's ever seen.

They debate politics and philosophy and literature over a breakfast of protein shakes and candied citron, a lunch that tastes like military rations and sweet creamed cakes, and a dinner that neither one of them finish because they're both on their feet and screaming and hissing into their respective microphones.

"Could you come visit me sometime?" he asks offhandedly sometime later, draped over his cot and staring blankly at the junction of wall and ceiling, unsure of the hour or the day, "I miss seeing you."

"No," L tells him, and he narrows his eyes.

"Torturer."

"Perhaps," L says softly, and he has to laugh, because it's true and they both know it, that ruthlessness is the only way they'll ever win this game, and if it were allowed, they'd stab each other in the back in a heartbeat.

"If we'd met before all of this," he says consideringly, "It would be the same, wouldn't it?"

There's a brief pause that stretches into something longer as L ponders the question, as Light daydreams of meeting the boy in a lecture and slowly strangling him to death as the professor drones on. "Likely."

He lets his lips curl into a smile. "Good."

It seems like an eternity before he knows he's at the point of breaking, and even though it's his own design, he's still enraged by his own weakness - but he's damn sick of L and his questions and Ryuk and his spasms and when he says the words, he knows it's for the best. He's plotted it and planned it and even if the world falls through, he'll never get caught.

...and this was stupid and insane and why had he even suggested this?! It takes screaming and pleading and the sound of a gunshot roaring in his ears and he thinks _Ryuuzaki you fucking bastard_ through Misa's quiet sobs and his father's ragged breathing and his own panic, cooling now, enough that he can breathe in and understand the reason behind it all, even though it stings behind his eyes and leaves a sour taste of bile on his tongue.

When they get to the hotel, he throws up until he's left dry heaving and glares through watery eyes at his so-called friend, watching and patient and soulless.

"I hate you," he hisses through a haze of pain and rage and frustration, and L reaches over and hands him a towel and a glass of water and watches as he rinses his mouth and splashes water on his face and tries to remember how to breathe.

He looks up when he finally feels human again, and stares at the face in the mirror - he looks too haggard and too tired and much, much older than his tender years. "I understand why you did it," he says softly, "I don't like it, but I understand."

"Hm," L says, watching him watching him in the mirror.

"...you really don't give a damn about people, do you?" It comes out as a whisper, and he grips the towel too tightly, but at least that means he won't break or hit anything, no shattered mirrors or shattered bones, and he doesn't know why that makes him think of roses and Misa dancing, trailing bloodstained ribbons along the ground.

L snorts and rises to his feet, heading for the door, and the motion is enough to snap him from his odd daze and blink hard, trying to refocus. "And you do?" he questions, soft and hard all at once, and if he were anyone else but himself, he wouldn't have been able to detect the scorn lurking beneath the words.

The handcuffs are weird, but he understands that too, and disconcerting as it is, he likes being with Ryuuzaki, at least when it's not pissing him off - he's never had a real friend before, he's just played the game and smiled and given them what they wanted, and even if the whole situation is utterly embarrassing and he's been forcibly struck with the vaguely horrifying thought that his best friend really is a pervert - and he manages somehow, because he understands the necessity of it all, even if he doesn't quite know what to make of the blunt accusations on his lips and in his eyes. But at least he's got his attention, even if it is disconcerting, and he has a goal, and somehow he manages to keep up with their dance, even if it does mean he fumbles and occasionally gets kicked in the face for his troubles. If this is what emotional involvement means, he doesn't want any of it, and resents being stuck with his own odd fondness and bitter hatred for the boy-man-thing lurking constantly at the edge of his vision.

 _Traitor,_ he whispers in the quiet of an evening snack, trying to stare somewhere past L's head and out into the city, but the window only shows his reflection, two boys and a pile of cupcakes, and he thinks this is what it must feel like to suffocate, trapped in softly fluffed pillows with the sticky-sweetness of expensive icing lingering on his tongue.  



	3. Best Friend/Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are discussed.

It's three in the morning, the sheets are crumpled beneath his belly, and he can't sleep, so he stretches out over the bed and stares in undisguised fascination at the boy sharing his bed. "...you hide," Light says after a moment's observation, chin propped on his folded arms and looking up, "But you don't ever pretend."

"Hm," L replies, and taps lightly at the mouse.

Light watches him placidly, too sleepy to get up and sit properly beside him, and too awake to curl up and go back to sleep. L keeps his eyes and attention on the laptop that is propped at the edge of the bed, but Light isn't interested in the contents of whatever new web page he'd found to scan through. Yotsuba will still be under investigation in the morning, he's tired, and even if L is an insomniac, Light himself doesn't want to be.

"...you're never going to tell me why, are you." It isn't a question, but it wins him a glance, and then an outright stare, calculating and cool despite the lateness of the hour.

"You're the first to want to know," L tells him, biting down on a thumbnail thoughtfully.

Light smiles. "Liar. I'm just the first who's brave enough to try."

"Hm." But it is a smile, faint and unreadable, and it draws a sigh past his own lips, soft and contented and a little confused. "I thought you said I didn't pretend."

"Pretending and lying are two different things," he retorts easily. "At least you're honest about your dishonesty."

L blinks once. "Oh?"

He shrugs. "You lie for a purpose, but I know your purpose, so it's a lie, but it's not. For anyone else, maybe, it would really be a lie, but you don't lie and lie at me, you just lie. It's flattering in a perverse kind of way, although I don't think anyone else would get it. Sometimes even I don't understand us." _I feel like I'm dreaming_ , he thinks, but doesn't say, _I feel like I'm dreaming and I don't want to wake up._

"There is an 'us'?"

Light chuckles, faint and bitter. "You've seen the way they look at us." _My father thinks I'm crazy, and he might be right, you know._ "You know what I mean."

"...I was unaware that there was an 'us' to us."

He does sit up then, slow and a little uncertain, because he's been sure that L feels it too, whatever it is that he's feeling, more real than anything he'd ever felt before, bright and vibrant and viciously, ruthlessly _alive_. "There always has been, to me."

"Oh?" Another slow, slow smile. "Yagami-kun, do you even remember how we met?"

"The Toudai opening ceremony." He grins at him, wry and calculated. "You confused me." He doesn't hesitate in his reply, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows with a cold certainty that L knows something he doesn't, something quiet and awful that he would never speak of, something that could break him, something that he won't say because he was too useful to him like this, alive and intelligent and maybe, precious maybe, more than just a tool to be used and then discarded.

"Liar," L tells him softly, and he sighs, leaning forward and pressing his fingers to his shoulders. L doesn't react, so he leans over the rest of the way and tilts his head a little, closing his eyes and nuzzling his cheek against his hair, hesitantly because he isn't sure what he's doing, hesitantly because L is fast and L is strong and this close, Light is dangerously vulnerable.

"...I've never been this close to anyone before," he admits, low-voiced, maybe a little afraid, "No girls. No friends. Not even Misa, though god knows she's tried."

"It's because you're arrogant," L murmurs, breath a soft hot thrill against his neck, and Light trembles faintly, but doesn't deny his assertion. "You don't think anyone is good enough for you."

...but isn't that true? "...no one else is as interesting as we are," Light says softly, pulling back to look at him again, but leaning his forehead against L's to stay close, relishing the warmth and realness of him, even as he feels a little drowned in the unearthly depths of his eyes. "In a way, I'm almost grateful to Kira."

Being this close leaves him lightheaded and maybe a little dizzy, and if he were a normal teenager, he might be blushing.

Strange, alien boy, not at all attractive, but appearances are only that, and he knows that better than most, even if every last one of L's personal habits irritates him to the point of violence.

"Shame on you, Yagami Light."

"I know," he admits, pressing a little closer, averting his eyes for a moment, feeling oddly shy. Being with L is like being stripped naked by an interested but neutral observer all the time, and he still isn't sure how he feels about it, especially in the intimate silence of their nights together - and that's a thought that makes him shiver all on its own even as he lives it. "But you'd never have noticed me if I weren't a suspect."

"That makes you angry."

"A little." He shrugs, running a careful fingertip over the links of the chain that bind them, glancing up to eye him through his bangs for a moment. "But you'd have no reason to, really, so there's no sense to my anger."

"Except your ego."

His lips quirk into an unwilling grin, and, not for the first time, he wonders if he's been waiting all his life for this. "I like you. I want you to pay attention to me."

"I always will," L says softly, a promise and a threat in one, utterly sincere and completely terrifying.

"Know thy enemy?" he asks, and closes his eyes, breathing in slowly, trying to memorize the moment, the low hum of the laptop nearby, nearly a living thing all its own, the feel of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, the soft warmth curling low in his belly and the faint, simmering fury and delight that means that L has gotten to him, _again_ , and maybe he's wanted this forever, because he's never felt like this before, and he knows with a cold hard certainty that the world would revert back to bleakness and boredom if he ever lost him.

"Of course," L answers, and the sweep of dark lashes over his skin feels like a kiss.


	4. Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's kind of inevitable, really.

He knows in a detached sort of way that this can't possibly be healthy, isn't at all healthy, and that it's taking its toll on him, weeks in a cell and weeks in an almost-prison and weeks of unrest, so he's not really surprised when he catches a cold and winds up spending the day sleeping in his chair and only waking up at the quiet ruckus that ensues when the detectives depart for the evening, watching through slit eyes as they pack up and tiptoe away.

The world is only normal when they're around, and once they've left, he groggily staggers to his feet and lets L drag him to the bathroom, flinching under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights.

"I look like you," he states flatly once he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and stays still as L unlocks the cuffs long enough for them to peel out of their shirts and drop them on the floor, and it's a measure of how exhausted he is that he doesn't pick them up, fold them properly, and place them on the sink. That doesn't mean he's not annoyed by the messiness of it all, and as he's struggling out of his pants, he nearly trips himself into L, who neatly steps backwards to avoid his flailing. When he finishes wobbling, he glares. "And you could've caught me, you bastard."

"Yes," L agrees, and if he were feeling better, he would punch him in the face. But he's not, and L is awfully far away, and the thought of a shower is very appealing right now, as he has the vaguely horrified notion that he has begun to smell. So he straightens himself, resolves not to look at him, and marches his way into the shower stall and cranks the heat up as high as he can.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he has the hazy thought that being naked in front of L isn't as weird as it should be, but he's too tired to analyze the feeling in depth, because it's warm and he's starting to feel a little more human, and if he doesn't watch himself, he'll fall asleep and drown himself accidentally, which would be kind of amusing in a morbid sort of way. His father would be mortified, but then again, if he's not used to that by now, he never will be. Light has long since resigned himself to the fact that there is absolutely no way to keep one's dignity when handcuffed to another man, and the fact that he's standing here in the shower while being stared at is just another example thereof.

 _Prisoner, prisoner, prisoner, this is you they humiliate them, but it's not working, and it won't work, did you think this would break me? Of course not, of course not, of course not, we both know better, don't we?_

Light tilts his head back and closes his eyes as shampoo runs down his face. It stings at his eyes, but the burn makes him smile, because everything is useless but the case, because the world has gotten so small but maybe that's just the way it always was, because he's felt this way before, languid and restless and sleepy, but at least now there's something to work for, at least now he has a reason to be alive.

 _I'm beautiful and I'm brilliant and you and I both know it - but I'll play your game, because this is fun._

Flushed and dripping, he steps out of the stall and wraps himself in the fluffy towel that's been waiting, and leans against the sink, watching through half-lidded eyes and L kicks off jeans and boxers and shuffles his way into the shower. It's sort of surreal, and sort of insane, and not for the first time, he wonders where the hell L came from. He knows he'll never get an answer, and doesn't really want to know, but from the crumpled clothes on the floor, he's just another college student, lazy and selfish and inconsiderate and boringly normal.

The thought makes him snicker, and then it makes him laugh, and then he shuts up because his head hurts and now L is leaning in and staring at him, which is especially disconcerting because that means he's dripping on his feet, and L likes the water cold, cold as his fingertips against his forehead and the small, delicate frown on his lips.

"You have a fever, Light-kun," he says, and then plucks his hand away and turns to vigorously wash it, like they aren't both still damp from their shower, like he's been contaminated and needs to be disinfected before he can use that hand again.

Light narrows his eyes, leans over, and coughs directly into his ear. It's almost worth the towel L throws in his face, and later, sleepy and satisfied, he spreads it out over his pillow and closes his eyes with a heavy sigh, only stirring again when L kicks him in the side to make room for more papers, piling up by his elbows and propped against his knee.

He drowses, and then he dreams, and wakes up trembling and cold, desperately wondering why he can't remember what happened to Naomi Misora. The papers are still there, and L is still there, and thanks to the goddamned air conditioning, the world is freezing.

 _I don't want to die,_ he thinks in an abstract sort of way, and shivers in the quiet, turning to look at L, crouched in a chair beside the bed and staring at his computer like it has all the answers to their mystery locked inside of it. Something like quiet dread creeps up his spine as he stares at him, too pale and too still in the dimness. _I don't want to die._

L's eyes flicker to him only once, but he holds the gaze for a very long time, breath shallow and cheeks flushed for reasons he doesn't want to examine.

In the morning, he can breathe again, but he struggles through the day with a foggy head, and somewhere along the way, he brushes his fingers against L's wrist and grabs on hard just to feel the pulse beating beneath his fingertips. L smacks his hand away, but the contact is enough to convince him that it's real, at least for that one moment.

When he sits back, the world blurs again into a confusion of soft sound and movement, low voices and careful footfalls and rumpled suits and half-unknotted ties and cream and dark and pale. He's not surprised that it seems to revolve around L.

"...Ryuuzaki."

"Yagami-kun."

"I think I'm going to vomit."

"It had better not be on me."


	5. Fever Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illness takes its toll.

He's freezing. He's too hot. The sheets are too cold and too uncomfortable, and he's been staring at the ceiling for so long his vision has begun to swim. His chest is aching and his sinuses are stuffed and in some small, abstract way, he misses his mother. She at least would have made him see a doctor. _Who do I have to kill to get a decongestant?_ Light wonders, and rubs his bruised ribcage ruefully, darting a glance across the expanse of the bed. He should have known better than to pick a fight when he's not at his best, but he'll be the first one to admit that L makes him lose his temper.

 _Bastard. I hope you die._

From up here, the sound of the street is muffled, but the acid glow of the neon lights below bite into the solitude of the night, and it's utterly creepy in a horror-movie sort of way, the world backwashed in blue, the air conditioner humming low, and the sound of his own heartbeat ringing too-loud in his ears. In the stillness, the spool of the chain is a silvered noose wound around his throat, his wrists, and dangling from lazy puppet-master fingertips, bitten raw and dripping pale blood to the too-sterile carpet.

He blinks, but the illusion doesn't go away, and when he shifts to prop himself on his elbows, the sound is disturbingly loud in the not-quite silence. He's made his decision now, he thinks, and even if it shatters whatever it is that there is now, he's restless and tired and maybe a little bit crazy, so he'll do it now because the only thing he's sure of is that they won't get any second chances.

The other boy might be a statue, or a piece of abstract art, and when he half-closes his eyes in sleepiness, L is just a blur of white and black washed in silver. _Pretty,_ he thinks, pretty with his sharp angles softened and his intrusive eyes a shadow away.

He licks too-dry lips and mouths the words _I hate you_ but it comes out like a caress, and when he yanks on the chain, it gives him a rush of vicious satisfaction that one pale wrist jerks backwards with a sound that's ugly and delicate all at once, like a glutton stuffing his face with dainty fingertips, like a Madonna painted black.

He thinks of Misa, and thinks that she will understand.

L turns to stare, blank and not-blank and like a laser despite the murky dark, and Light smiles, lips pulling into a grin that's too-wide and a little bit painful and maybe a little bit mad.

 _Pay attention to me, you bastard,_ he thinks, and slinks forward, all cat-smile and calculated arch, and it's the best show ever because L sees right through it.

"Yagami-kun," L says simply, and he wants to bite the not-smile off of his lips.

"Ryuuzaki," is what he says instead, and presses a knee to his thigh and gives him a smile in return, too-dark and too-hungry and too-transparent and not transparent enough.

L's smile spreads, and he slips from his perch onto the bed, a graceful-awkward folding and shifting that couldn't look so good on anyone but him, and Light lets himself fall artfully back, all mussed hair and pale skin chain-bitten and dark eyes half-lidded in satisfaction. _Look at me, look at me, look at me,_ he insists, and watches the life-leeching bleed of not-color in his hair and on his skin, and feels his breath get short and taut and painful in his chest.

He moves like a ghost in the dark, and it's lovely as death, and forever lies bleeding in the sand.

 _You're not human,_ he murmurs happily, lips forming words he doesn't utter, and he shivers at the brush of too-cold fingers against his bare throat, the faint clink of the chain slapping itself as he tugs at it, trying to coax him closer.

In the silvered dark, L's eyes stare right through him, and he thinks _I want_ and _Maybe I should kill him_ and _IwantIwantIwantIwantIwant_ and _if I were Kira I'd kill you so I wouldn't have to share you with anyone else_ and _play with me you're mine my playmate mine mine mine_ and L just laughs at him, silent and still and coiled up like a spring, ready to leap and bite and fight and not do anything at all.

"L," he says, and watches the light get drowned in his eyes. He likes saying it, likes breathing it, likes that he can whisper it, low and hot against one pale shell ear, and he trembles when cool lips brush his skin and the murmur of "Light" is lost in the sweep of his soft dark hair over the beat of his pulse.

"Kira is the best thing that ever happened to us," he whispers, and relishes the bite of blood in his mouth and the crash of expensive electronics to the floor, a pool of glinting metal and sparks that they fall into, biting and scratching and gouging, and with pain screaming from his spine and blood trickling too-dark to the floor, he arches himself up and steals a kiss, wet heat and old sugar, and if he weren't a narcissist and much too smart for it, he could be in love.

The face L pulls makes him laugh.

"You piss me off so much," he says softly, smiling, "And I hate you and I want you to die and before we get killed, we should fuck."

"That's disgusting," L tells him, and shoves him towards the bed. He goes gladly, preening and proud, but when he reaches for him, L shrugs him away, and he knows that he won't be his tonight. He knows that in the morning, he'll look over and feel like an idiot and a bumbling teenager again, because in the light of day he can at least pretend at sanity, even though he's starting to wonder why he bothers. But they're already scared of L, even if they're too stupid to realize it, and his pretty mask has been on so long that he's forgotten how it comes off, or if it ever did at all.

He folds his arms under his chin and blinks up at him with bright eyes and a charming smile, the tang of copper still biting his tongue, and thinks honesty is a strange thing to share with someone whose lips speak only lies. "You're my best friend," he says sincerely, sure of his words even if he's still not sure what they mean, "we'll catch Kira together, and then we'll have cake."

"Liar," L tells him, and he muffles his laugh in the blankets and reaches for him, hungry for that brightness, aching to be real, but L slides away again, and he hates him so much that it feels like euphoria, bleeding out in the dark. "You hate cake."

Light laughs his way into a coughing fit, laughs until his eyes sting with tears, laughs until he's sure he's going to throw up all over L's already half-ruined expensive electronics, and drinks the tea that L gives him, syrupy with sugar and vile as poison as it coats his teeth and the back of his throat. It's almost sweet, in a demented sort of way, except that he burns his tongue and L spends the rest of the night ignoring him.

In the morning, his fever breaks, and he rolls over and stretches languidly, trying to shake the heaviness from his limbs. It doesn't quite work, but he manages to sit up and blink groggily over at his bedmate.

"Good morning, Light-kun," L says, and peers at him over the screen of his laptop. "You are feeling better." It isn't a question.

"Mmm," Light agrees, eying him warily. _And the opening volley?_

L tilts his head and stares at him for a long moment. "Three more days," he declares, and turns back to his computer.

Light blinks, muzzy-headed and slightly more bewildered than usual. "...wait, what?"

"Three more days. You should be healthy enough by then."

Mentally, he runs through a checklist of case-related activities that could be negatively impacted by the lingering traces of his illness, and comes up empty. "Healthy enough for what?"

This time, L smirks at him, then raises a thumb to his lips and bites down softly, just a flash of white teeth and pink tongue against pale, pale flesh.

Light has never been more thankful for the fact that he doesn't blush. Instead, he half-lowers his lashes to something that's a good imitation of shyness and slides across the bed, feeling out the first steps of this new twist of the game. When he's close enough, he pauses, and L glances up at him, expression placid.

It's quiet for a long moment as they contemplate one another, detective and suspect, one and the other, and then Light lunges forward and fists a hand in night-dark hair and steals another kiss, salt-copper on his tongue and dripping with sugar - _my choice my choice if I want it I'll take it I'm the only one you like so we'll have some fun before we die, won't we?_ \- and later, when the team comes in, he's normal again, all pretty show and tell, and if his face feels like it's cracking, L is the only one who will notice, and no matter how badly he wants to slide into his lap and bite him until he bleeds, he's trained himself for far too long to tarnish his image now.

 _Why do I even bother?_ he wonders, and is disgusted by the gleam of appreciation in Matsuda's eyes as Misa flounces in and latches onto his arm, but not by her, because she's not as stupid as the rest, not where it counts, and he's wary of her even if he doesn't know why. So he lets her cling, and he lets her chatter, because even if she bores him, she's keeping his secret, and there's something like death in her eyes, even if L is the only other one who sees it.

The rest are blind - she's a brilliant actress, after all - and Matsuda loves her for her sweetness. It's cute in a pathetic sort of way, but he wants to tug her away from him, because even though she's not like them, she's not like anyone else, either.

 _Kira-mad,_ he thinks, and even though her babble is tiresome, their three-sided dates are a breath of normalcy in a world that's twenty-odd degrees left of normal.


	6. Affair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tangles.

In the blue-silver wash of another endless night, he clings close and whispers "You ruined me," and L just smiles at him, because he's been rotten from the start and they're the only ones who know. And this is the best game ever, because he's never been this alive before, and when he says "I love you to death" they both know that it isn't a lie but it isn't the truth, because every lie he tells falls through and the only truth that matters is the truth that they make.

On the long nights that follow the days that are good, he nuzzles his face into L's throat and whispers "I want I want I want give me what I want" and sometimes, just sometimes, L will kiss him, slow and deep and wet like drowning and dying and he doesn't mind it, he doesn't mind it at all, because it's a part of the game, and he's having so much fun he's almost sick with the glee of it, gorged on wit and hate and fighting and playing, always playing, because catching Kira gives him something to live for, and L is now and always will be his favorite person to ever walk the earth.

In odd, abstracted moments, Light thinks he might be happy, and he wonders if that's the reason why his father can't seem to meet his eyes anymore. It's not as if he's changed at all - it's just that his layers are getting stripped down, and even though he'll always be beautiful, he knows he's not exactly what his father wants him to be, has always believed him to be, and he hadn't even realized how much he'd hated it until now.

Soichiro wastes his time blaming L and himself for the change, but all L's done is start to unbind him, like a violation and a caress, and if they weren't watched constantly, it would feel secret and intimate, and maybe then they could be lovers. But it's not, and they're not, and so he fights it, tries to reconstruct his walls as fast as L breaks him down, but the glimpses of truth that keep slipping out just up the number of quiet whispers in the dark: _Six percent, Yagami-kun, six percent but we both know the truth_ and he has to clamp his teeth together and his hands over his ears and squeeze his eyes shut because _I don't know I don't know maybe maybe maybe why don't I know why don't I remember I should know this I should know I should -_

 _I don't want to be a murderer._

He wants to catch Kira just to prove him wrong, to have a victory of his own and his freedom again, but if they do win, if they do catch him, what will happen then? L is cold enough to leave men dead in the cause of justice, remote enough that all his yearning barely scratches the surface of his glacial calm, and even if he's the one who first said the words, Light knows that he is _his_ only friend, and absolutely doesn't want to let him go.

They're both selfish, greedy children, and maybe that's why they don't mind Misa, all brightness and blood-dipped sunshine, because she's a child too, grasping and holding on with tooth and nail and claw, the third loop in the noose and slowly strangling them to death. And she knows it too, because for all her flippancy she's not an idiot, and even though she's the only one that the investigation team doesn't fear, they don't understand her, either.

He knows he can't love her, and he knows L can't either - _I should be better than this but we're so beautiful and he's so fucked up but I know I'm better than this_ \- but she loves them both and that is enough because she makes it enough. They can both use her, even though they both know they shouldn't, and though he's made his life doing what he should, he's not an idiot either. And she uses them both - Light plays the part of the attentive, adoring boyfriend, and L tugs on her strings, but she plays her role and in her own way, it seems, she is happy.

Once, he asked her if it hurt, and she burrowed her way in between them both and drew furrows in cloth and skin with black-lacquered nails, and neither one of them complained, because morality was flexible and really, in the end, it meant nothing at all. They of all people had no right to criticize her, and though she never pressed them, they all knew it to be true.

"It's okay this way," she murmured, artifice dropped for the sake of the boy she loved, for the stress and wear that was a three-way collision of absolute resolve and obsession that none of them bothered to deny to one another, even if they made an excellent show for everyone else. "Ryuuzaki's a pervert and we'll never catch Kira, but we're happy now, aren't we?"

He laid his cheek against the softness of her hair and thought that it was a pity, thought that it was pathetic to fall this far, this fast, and maybe she deserved better than him but she wouldn't take it even if someone offered, so really, who was to blame?

And he doesn't really mind it, the isolation and his own increasing awareness that his own genius might be tempered by the slightest bit of instability, because these are the only people he has ever known that are at all like him, and though that should be more unsettling than it is - _Ishouldbeperfectspecialthebest_ \- there's a twisted comfort in the reassurance that he can duel with L forever, and Misa will always be there because she won't allow anything else.

Sometimes he hates Kira for her fanaticism, and sometimes he hates himself for it, but something quiet whispers _she's one of us she'll kill us both and she won't regret it and she's such a sweet thing, to make up for the two of us, and I could never love her but she's a part of this and the only one with a motive that's pure, does that make her our better...?_

And that was okay too, because they're not all right and they never will be, but at least they're all alive. It probably won't last long, and they'll probably wind up a double-triple-murder-suicide, but he knows somewhere in the pit of his gut that none of them will ever grow old.

Misa likes it when they kiss her on the nose and on the cheek because in those moments he's not lying even if L is, but her favorite times are when Light dutifully kisses her mouth. Those kisses are soft and girl-sweet and lipstick-slick, and he wonders if he tastes poison because he's going slightly crazy or because she is instead. But it's necessary, and so he does what he has to do, and it's not an unpleasant feeling, attention and desire, and even if being used still bothers him, he knows how to manage this trade, and it's not like she isn't beautiful and clever in her own way.

He likes that she takes his lies as her truth even though she knows he's lying.


	7. Serenity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Future dreams.

He likes the nights best, surreal and silver-gilt and oddly fitting - better, far better to whisper in the close, suffocating stagnancy of their hotel room than to speak of slow-growing madness beneath the constant blaze of fluorescent lights and computer screens and expectant faces, putting on a show for the slower detectives who are necessary for their game but aren't a part of the essential world that he considers to be his own. And even though he knows this dance, it exhausts him, all shine and spit-polish and sleep deprivation, and as much as he wants to slide into L - no, _Ryuuzaki's_ lap and curl in and nap his way through the afternoon, it's not something fitting and it's not something right, so he doesn't.

 _I will not be that weak for you,_ he thinks, and doesn't stare at the way he licks a silver spoon and his own fingers, no matter how much he wants to.

L would probably shove him away if he reached for him now, although he's not sure, but he's also not confident enough to try, because the only thing worse than having his father and colleagues watch him snuggle with another boy would be to have his father and colleagues watch him attempt to snuggle and instead get kicked off of the object of his so-called affections. L has no sense of personal space, but he also has no sense of decorum, and doesn't hesitate to embarrass him, so he's just as well off not trying, no matter how much the late nights and early mornings wear on him.

He now knows what it's like to be exhausted enough that he never sleeps, and he hates it with a violent passion that has made him fight violently for a decent bedtime, for all that L is a horrible bedmate and a distraction all in one.

Sometimes they talk. Light will lay sprawled across the bed, fingers tangled in the starkness of L's shirt or hair - once deliciously curled through his belt loops, and that night was sweet-sour with kisses that tasted of tea and synthetic sugar, and the soft, delicate play of slim fingertips on his skin, light and fleeting enough that he was left trembling and flushed when morning broke, and he hadn't slept at all that night, realizing a groggy-eyed hour or two later that the cake and awkward smiles meant that it was his birthday, and he was much too exhausted to enjoy the fuss and indelicate attention until they'd finally been convinced to leave and he could pounce on L and steal a proper kiss, slow and hot and eager and starving.

"Please?" he murmured at their parting, not a plea because it was just a word, just a negotiation to get what he wanted, and L's smile was a slow and deadly thing in the dark.

They wiped the security tapes in the morning and never spoke of it again, but he thinks on it sometimes, watching the fall of dark hair against pale skin and the curve of his throat as he breathes.

Once, buried in files and papers and scrawled notes and letters, he blinked and looked up and reached over and tilted L's chin up so he could stare at him properly. "This is fun," he told him, and because they were blessedly alone for once, he could lean over and kiss his cheek, sweet as Misa and just as obsessive. "Thank you."

L just smiled at him, an odd little twitch of his lips. "Light-kun is a charmer."

He frowned a little. "You think I'm a serial killer," he pointed out, "and I only charm those who are foolish enough to believe it." _Which you don't,_ he didn't say, because the line was old and even he was growing tired of it by now. _But you're wrong._

"I know," was all that L said, and met his eyes serenely, sipping delicately at the sludge in his coffee cup. "Serial killers can be charming."

He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but he didn't, just watched the path of cup and saucer as they were deposited back on the table. Light put down the files, reached over, and kissed him on the mouth, delicate and gentle. When he pulled away, it was close enough that their noses and lips still brushed. "Childish bastard."

"Yes," L said agreeably from a scarce handful of centimeters away. "Same to you."

Light snorted and wiggled around for a more comfortable seat, quite deliberately driving his elbow in the general vicinity of L's left kidney. "This is stupid. I want," he said softly, voice accusative. "It's not a pleasant sensation. Did you plan for this?"

"Suspected and anticipated, not planned." One pale hand darted out, slim fingers sliding up along the inside of his arm as he fought down a shiver. "There was an eighty-three percent chance that you would be more interested in trying to best me than interested in me personally." His smile was a peculiar thing. "I trust that has not changed."

"Of course I still want to win," he said softly, unrepentant and well aware that dropping that dream would make them both grouchy and miserable. "Want to show you I'm right and you're wrong."

"And then what do you want, Light-kun?" Calloused fingertips were rough-softness as they traced slowly along the path of his veins, threading back up to his heart. A threat, or more of that odd gentleness? Either way the touch made him tremble unpleasantly. "Will you go back to school, become a police officer?"

Light snorted softly. "Why ask a question when you know the answer?" _You know we don't have a future - so what's the game now?_

"Humor me."

"Why should I?"

L kissed him then, warm and deep and slow, and didn't let go until Light was sunk back deeply in his chair, hands tangled in his hair and clothes and wiggling his way up against the knee wedged between his legs. Light squirmed a little, shameless in his enjoyment of the heat between them, and pulled him closer, more fully into the weight of his chair. "I'll go with you," Light said, "and you'll take me because I'm useful and you like me."

"Hm," L said, and Light kissed him again, wet and warm and sweet.

"It's true though," he whispered, "we have to win, because we're both so close to perfect."

"You want to be perfect," L breathed against his ear, "but I'll break your dream, Kira."

He closed his eyes and slid his hands up the knobby length of his spine, let his fingers brush against soft denim and pale, pale skin. "Perfection is a lie," he whispered, lying, "We both know it, and I'm not Kira."

"You dream as if you are," L told him, pulling back, and spent a precious moment delicately winding the chain through their linked fingertips.

He inhaled shallowly, just watching, just letting him do as he pleased. "I want the world to be better, but I don't think I could be a murderer... whatever powers Kira has... I don't..." _I wouldn't,_ he thought, but he knew it was at least halfway a lie.

"Not anymore," L whispered almost tenderly, and he tugged him down for another kiss, slow and soft and hungry.

"People are awful," Light murmured when he remembered how to breathe again, "Even with Kira on the loose, they still murder, they still steal, they still kill... if there were another way to bring the numbers down..."

"That will never change," L told him softly, "Nothing ever changes."

Another step, another twist, another turn in the dance, and he knows it's true, because if they don't die here they'll die somewhere else, still dancing. He's not in love, but he likes the kisses and caresses for the simple fact that it's attention, and even though every caress is another attempt to coax out the truth from him, every kiss he steals is his own counter, whispering "I'm innocent it's not me I didn't I wouldn't it's not you're wrong" against cool lips and soft tongue and too-fleeting sweetness that barely masks the rot beneath.

It's a good game, the best, and he's never felt this much before. It could be like being drunk or stupid, or like falling in love, except neither of them know or care what love is, so fleeting physical attraction and burning curiosity combine to make it something that isn't now and never will be a romance.


	8. Porcelain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fragile things.

Of all of them, Misa's the most aware, and though she scowls and pouts and hisses accusations, clings and snarls and lashes out, she never scolds Light for what he's doing and what he's done, and in some odd, abstract way, he suspects he should feel guilty about it. But he doesn't - he's never really felt anything before, and he doesn't now, and he sometimes wonders why they're doing this, trying to save them all, people who are too stupid to realize the danger they're in - and the only reassurance that anything matters at all is in the clatter of china and the splash of lukewarm tea, whispers of life in a world gone hazy and soft with dreams and anticipation and dread and dullness.

"I have measured out my life in coffee spoons," he quotes softly on a dull rainy afternoon, peering over a pile of reports and past the puzzled glances of Aizawa and his father to L's afternoon snack, doughnuts oozing cream and jelly like freshly-spilled viscera onto crisp white paper doilies.

Idly, he thinks that perhaps he's becoming a callous bastard, but that could just be L's influence, unfolding his perfect package to reveal someone who isn't much like the model student and devoted son he's been pretending to be, but there are far better ideals than those held up by society - _sheep,_ something soft and dark whispers from deep inside, and he throttles the thought before it can be carried out - and the farther he gets from that society, the less he finds himself caring. _They're not like me and I'm not like them._

"In the chambers of the sea," L murmurs agreeably, gaze flickering to the quiet storm rumbling past the windows and back again.

"...but I really can't picture Misa in seaweed," he mumbles, still in English and spoken swiftly enough that only L will understand. "Or talking of Michelangelo."

L puts his thumb to his lips and half-smiles in a fashion that manages to be simultaneously rather attractive and incredibly creepy. "I can."

Light throws a doughnut at his head, and L catches it with deft fingers and an arched brow. "Stop perving on my girlfriend, Ryuuzaki."

"Merely an observation, Light-kun. Misa-Misa is very fond of her religious imagery, it should not be a surprise that she might be familiar with some of his more famous works."

Later that night, he spends an hour or so watching her, black on red and bright, bright hair, flipping through a glossy magazine and toying with an ornate cross draped around her neck - but which one is it, Misa-Misa-Kira-Misa, and even now it makes his fingers tremble, because there are lies heaped on lies on lies and lies and he thinks somewhere in the back of his mind that this is his fault, but it can't be his fault, because if the world weren't so awful then he wouldn't have... and it's gone again, spider silk and a plastic kiss, echoing in the dark.

He wakes up one morning to utter stillness and stares down at his bedmate, soft and curled and rumpled, the cold sunlight streaking through the blinds creating a bright slash against the paleness of his throat, and for the first time in forever he's struck by the thought that L - Ryuuzaki - looks entirely human.

"Oh," he says softly, just staring, a little dazed and a little confused, and then, "damn."

And then he settles himself down gingerly beside him, slides an arm around his waist _so thin he's too thin did I make this happen is it me or is it him or is it us?_ and just lies there for an hour, because L is going to die, probably in the course of this case, maybe because of him - _we did this we're doing this it's us even if he's caught we're running too hard and the only way to stop is_ \- and for the first time it's not an unfortunate consequence of living, it's not a vague whispery dread or a bright-hard certainty, it's a tragedy, and when it happens, he knows he won't have the time or ability to grieve.

"I won't cry for you," L whispers against his ear sometime later in the middle of a frozen afternoon, when they're alone except for an outpouring of sunshine lining the world in gold, and in its brightness, he seems faded, the shadows under his eyes deep as death in the light. "There's nothing to cry about, so don't be sad."

"Just because it's inevitable doesn't mean I can just... divorce my feelings from it all," he whispers, feeling childish and small and vaguely ashamed that he doesn't actually seem to know how to cry, when only the most sincere performance will make it real. "How can you...?"

Fingers on his hair, on his cheek, and brushing over his lips, and even though it's an admittance of weakness, he presses into the touch. "So idealistic," L chides, soft enough that the words bite, "if it makes you feel any better, it will be because of me."

His stomach turns a knot, but he swallows and doesn't plaster on the fake smile and laugh because they're alone and he's being serious and... "I'm glad," he whispers back, soft and choked and miserable, because he wants it this way. "And... me?"

"I would expect nothing less, Kira," L tells him, and he has to punch him then, bite and hit and do something, anything, because even though he hates it, hates it more than anything else he's ever hated before, he hates the part of him that whispers _yes_ and _mine_ and _kill you fucking bastard and laugh and laugh and laugh_ , but it's either his own disgust with himself or his own disgust with L that muddles his head enough that he loses a fight with the coffee table and winds up nursing a sprained wrist with an entirely unhelpful detective brooding at him from the other end of the chain.

"We should die in each other's arms," he says once, whimsical, "you and me and Misa, one big pile, and leave everyone else to clean up the mess."

"How irresponsible and melodramatic," L retorts coolly.

"You like it too," he accuses, and it wins him a half-smile, nearly hidden behind a treacle tart.


	9. Liars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're not untrue.

They go out on the roof once, one night when the moon is full and brimming, and the breeze is cold and vicious, whipping around concrete and steel, and they climb to the highest part of the tower and breathe in the bite of the evening chill. Light shivers despite the thickness of his sweater and watches L perch himself on a low wall and curl up the way he always does, and realizes that in the moonlight he looks like death or a dream or a nightmare, and has to rush forward and throw his arms around his neck and bury his face in his hair just to make sure he's real.

 _Don't go don't go don't go don't go without me -_ So irrational. So pathetic. And yet... _Would you could you tell me were you alone like me?_

Cool fingers slide up over his neck, clamp down just hard enough to make him tremble, but L exerts just enough pressure to hold him in place, not quite enough to strangle him.

"You did this," he whispers, "For that...?" The world below them is spread out and neon-bright and beautiful, but miles and miles and miles away, full of people who aren't anything like them. _Sheep,_ the wind whispers, and he hides a shiver behind a smile he doesn't feel, and quietly hates the curiosity that tastes sour on his tongue.

"I did this," comes the soft, clear murmur, "for me."

It makes him hang on tighter, because it's not a lie and they don't matter because this is -

"You think I did that too?" his words are half muffled against the back of L's neck, not quite a kiss, not quite otherwise.

"...saving the world is an exercise in futility," L says softly, consideringly, "you're too young to understand that yet."

"...I'm not," he says, but he can't help the wince as he thinks of what L can do, has done, just to support his own cause, because really, is it selfishness if he calls it justice instead? Lovely Misa, bound and blinded, and the bite of steel at his wrists and the pounding of blood in his head, and if he closes his eyes for too long, he's back there, bored out of his skull and slowly rotting, trapped screams scraping his throat raw. Was it the torture that tore his memory to shreds, or was it his own complicity...?

 _Lind L. Taylor is dead and gone,_ he thinks, and wonders at his own calmness.

"You don't want to be," L tells him, "but you are. Kira is the same - the real Kira, not the one we're chasing now."

"...'real' Kira, huh," he murmurs, and wiggles around to sit next to him, curls an arm around his waist for warmth and to have something to hold onto, and maybe he would feel safer if only they weren't who they were. "Me?"

"Of course," comes the reply, and he closes his eyes and leans into him, breathing in day-old soap and the remnants of a cherry pie.

"I understand," he says softly, and even he can't tell if it's the truth or just something he's convinced himself into believing. "But I think we can be better."

"People are sheep," L says softly, but when it's him, it doesn't make him tremble, because a theory shared is a theory proven in all the ways that matter. "Foolish and easily mislead, but they won't be bullied for long."

"...it seems to be working, though," Light says quietly, not opening his eyes, because even though the spread of the city lights is lovely in the dark, its not what he wants to see, imperfect and fragile and traitorous. Blind among the blind, and veiled Justice breathes in his arms. There is no utopia here, but he thinks there could be, if only he'd listen and understand. "Crime rates have dropped internationally, people are feeling safer..."

"A tyrant is a tyrant," his voice is velvet-lined razors, "and you know how well history has dealt with tyrants."

It's quiet for a long moment, and Light feels very small, suddenly, just a boy trapped in the dark with a madman. "You're going to kill the king," he says, dizzy with possibility and the ghost-weight of a stolen crown sliding down to circle his neck. _You're going to kill me, aren't you?_

"I'm going to kill a demon," L says simply, "a foolish creature too simple for its own power."

"Anarchist," he murmurs, but it's lost in the wind and the sound of his own heart beating.

"You can't force people to change," L tells him, "because then they grow to hate you."

The hypocrisy makes him smile. "Aizawa."

"I have no use for someone who won't do as I say," L drawls, but he knows if he opens his eyes, he will be smirking.

"Tyrant," he says, but he knows that given the chance, he'd be the same - maybe even better at it, because he knows how to bend and bow and play and woo, and L won't waste his time on the ones who don't matter.

"My kingdom is one building tall," L murmurs agreeably, and he tilts his head down to kiss his lying mouth, soft and cool in the briskness of the breeze.

 _Hypocrite of all hypocrites, how are you still alive?_

Light hides a smile against his lips and dreams of knocking the king from his throne. It's an awfully long way to fall, and if he's dragged down with him, so much the better.

They're too good for this world anyway.


	10. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment of peril.

When the Death Note falls into his hands again, he gives a silent cry of shock and recognition and has to close his eyes against the rush of wind through his hair and memories pounding inside his skull. _IdiditIdiditworkeditworkedyesohfuckwhatdoIdonowfuckyesno -_

He turns his head and meets L's stare, fingers freezing even as they're reaching for his watch, because he can't do this with him watching, with him _knowing_ -

"...oh, goddamn it," he whispers, because this, at least, wasn't supposed to be this way. _We were both right and now we're going to have to die, aren't we?_

He lets the Note fall to his lap and smiles and reaches for him, like they've done something good, like this is a victory, and L clambers across the seat and lets him rest his cheek against his shoulder. Light inhales slowly, closes his eyes and just holds on, even though the playacting is making him sick and he doesn't know what to do with the piece of Note burning a hole in his wrist.

 _I don't love you and you don't love me and I don't want to kill you and I want to hold you while you die and Misa needs protecting and my world needs to be saved and you're going to have to die now, die soon, and I won't cry for you either, I won't, I won't cry at all._

And there's a choice to be made, but he made it ages ago, and there's no way to stop now, not with so much riding on his own freedom, on L's death, on Misa's life.

 _This is so unfair,_ he thinks, _I thought I was stronger than this,_ and it's sad and pathetic and disgusting but the part of him that cries _nononoIdon'twanthimtogoIdon'twanthimdeadIdon'twanthe'smineIdon'twanthimtoleavemealone!_ is the part he's been living for these long months, and if he figures it out, he'll be dead too, and his beautiful dream will shatter when it's only half-born.

He tilts his chin up and kisses L with the Death Note held between them, while below his father and the team arrest Higuchi and extract Misa and Watari takes over the controls of the helicopter and it's getting so late now, he has to start planning and thinking and finding a way to salvage this and save Misa but all he can think of right now is that he doesn't want to let him go.

 _What is it worth?_ he wonders, thinking of the idiots below, the girl waiting for them both, and a future in glory tainted by brain-numbing boredom that will stretch on and on and on until the day that he dies.

Light slides his way into his lap and curls his fingers into night-dark hair and kisses him again, wet and hungry and deep and starving, because there's no time left and no way to let it go. _I'll make it good for you,_ he whispers against the sweetness of his lips, _You're my best friend, I'll make it good - the best, just you and me, it'll just be us and my new world and everything will be beautiful -_

He's not crying, but he's clinging, because he doesn't know how to make this better, doesn't know how to save the world and his biggest mistake, and if he confesses now maybe he can save Misa and maybe L will live, but he doesn't want to die and he doesn't want to die and he has a world to save but the idiots will never know and never understand and being a god shouldn't mean that you have to sacrifice the one lovely thing the rotten world has produced -

Slim fingers tilt his chin up, push him softly away, and over the roar of the helicopter blades L mouths 'Kira,' and Light plasters on a tired smile and shakes his head and tries to play the game, but he's knocking over his own pieces with every moment that he hangs on, and maybe the sour churning in his stomach is the knowledge that someone's got to die even though he's never cared before - but oh, that's not true, he remembers it now, a night spent shaking under the covers with a leering shinigami watching over him, glowing eyes in the dark - and the other people don't matter, criminals are criminals but he's gone from hatred to not-hatred so fast and so hard that it's making him sick, and for once, he doesn't have a plan on what to do because he can't figure out who he's supposed to be.

 _I hate you for doing this to me,_ he whispers against the paleness of his neck, closing his eyes against the black hair tickling his eyelashes, _I hate me for letting this happen and I hate Misa for making this necessary and I hate everyone for being so pathetic and I have to kill you, I have to kill you, I have to, I have to - I shouldn't have to do anything, this is so fucking stupid!_

Stupid, silly children, and a world bleak and empty without him. He's getting tired of dancing, and L is as greedy as he is - if he falls in, L will never let him go.

And all he has to do is break out of the cages he's slaved over building, blood-gilt and lined in silver, topple the piles of bodies he's built up to make his throne.

Light has always been a selfish child.

"You're right," he is what he says instead of a pretty lie, whispered softly against the worn cotton of his shirt like the precious secret that it is, like he's feeling disgusted and horrified with himself, which he is, but not for Kira, never for Kira, because Kira was never wrong. _If I forfeit I haven't lost._ "You were right all along."

L exhales slowly, tilts his head down, and pulls him fully into his arms for the first time ever, wiggles them around until they're entwined in a messy sprawl across the back seats of the helicopter, and Light presses his face harder against his chest and bites his tongue until it bleeds for his beautiful new world, lost to his own weakness and what an idiot might call humanity. He's gambling again, half-lost in memories of fleeting sweetness and sour that lingers, and L will never, ever be able to win this from him.

"This is my victory," he breathes, swallowing down the taste of copper and closing his eyes, fingers curling to claw into pale fabric and the paler skin beneath it. _Now make it worth my while._

Beneath his cheek, he can feel L's heart beating.


	11. Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Negotiations.

"Misa," he whispers against his shoulder, eyes shut, anticipation coiling in his stomach. "We have to get to Misa before it's too late."

The whirl of the blades and the roar of the engine muffle his words into silence, but he traces them onto his palm, and L stiffens, then pins his arms behind his back. Hold enough to keep him trapped, hold enough to not betray himself, hold enough to remember that he must not reach for his watch, not now where he can see and feel and hold, not now that he can no longer risk a murder. He pulls against his hands just a little, wanting to reach for him, wanting to test the worth of his trade, and L's grip tightens painfully in the heartbeat's moment that passes before he lets him go.

Light glances up into his eyes and is pleased with the darkness there, pleased with the implicit trust and warning, and he wraps his arms around him again and holds on tightly, fingers sliding low to curl into his belt loops and brush against soft pale skin. The returning caress is all soft threat and curbed violence, and it makes him smile. _So this is how our game will go?_ It makes him want to laugh and steal kisses and slit throats, but his own glowing satisfaction is abruptly banked when he thinks on Rem, winging her way through the night's confusion and waiting for the right moment to strike.

There's confused chatter over the radio, arguments and shouting, demands for attention and direction, but Light smiles to know that they're being ignored, every last one of them, because the drama below is a farce and they're the only ones who know. The smell of L's skin is sharp and clean as he breathes him in, lips pressed against his vulnerable throat, mouthing _fortysecondsfortysecondsifIonlyknewyourname,_ while L traces _KiraKiraKiraKira_ along the curves of his spine and buries his face in his hair.

 _In the end, there's only us,_ he thinks abstractly, and watches through the window as the city blossoms beneath them and the world falls into flame.

* * *

They negotiate as they shuffle their way out of the helicopter, sidle past Watari and slam the doors behind them, speaking in aborted glances and half-touches, the Note dangling between them like something prophetic, but Light just hopes it won't slip past his sweaty fingertips and drop to the floor, because then it won't be a dance anymore, it will be annihilation.

Instead, he closes his eyes, breathes in deeply, and says softly and clearly: "For her freedom I'll give you a full confession."

He doesn't have to look to see that L tilts his head inquisitively to the side and blinks only once. "Why?"

He folds his free hand until the nails bite into his skin, pain enough to focus, pain enough to keep them both alive. "Because I don't want us to die."

He knows they're both thinking of Rem. It's something of a relief, not needing to explain, and if L had questioned him, he'd probably go ahead and kill him anyway, for not being as perfect as he wanted to believe.

Wouldn't he?

"That is a good goal," L says softly, and watches him as he flinches, blood welling between his fingertips and sliding down to drip on the floor beside them as they walk together down the hall.

* * *

When it comes to Misa, there's no stopping and no second-guessing, because she'll make her own way regardless of what they want - but because she loves him, he can negotiate, and maybe she'll listen if it suits her own ends.

She always answers well when he acts like he needs her.

They rush into the room where the team has abandoned her and crash into her in a tangle of limbs and clinging and fallen silver, and she's the only way to save them, so he buries his face in the curve of her throat and whispers "MisaMisaMisaMisa it's all gone wrong" and by her gasp and the hands in his hair, he knows she knows they both know, and his grip on them both is damning as the pounding of his own heart and the feel of slick paper beneath his fingertips.

"...wrong?" Her gaze slides up, and his breath freezes in his chest, but her eyes widen and her pretty painted lips part in a delicate 'o' and at his side, L tenses, dark eyes narrowing in something sudden and threatening that reminds him forcibly of vicious speed and strength, and they all know that he would have no qualms about hitting a woman.

Light knows they're all wondering how long it would take him to kill her.

His one hand is still bound to L and dragging, so he can't really embrace her and plead for her silence, but instead of fleeing them both, she goes very still and quiet and bites her lower lip with pretty little white teeth, and neither one of them is fool enough to overlook when her sweetness drowns her sour. "...what do you want me to do?" she whispers, and he breathes out and knows now that he can save them.

"Just tell Rem that you're safe now. We're going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." It's a mantra and a promise and a hope and a lie, but it's better than dying, better than dreaming, better than humanity and godhood and everything else in between.

She sways a little against him, soft blonde hair tickling his nose, warm and familiar and fragile, fragile, fragile - shattering trust means shattering lives, and they're a kite-string ready to snap. "...I know his name now," she whispers against his throat, "but I don't want to kill him."

He wants to laugh and scream and dance, because this is so _stupid_ and if only they'd known so much sooner this wouldn't be happening, he'd almost be a god already, but now, now...

 _What the hell have I done?_

"I screwed up," he admits softly, because it's ridiculous to ignore your own weakness, because she deserves the truth, because her lifespan's in shreds and it's her choice but it's his fault, and he doesn't feel guilty, just sympathetic, because now he knows what it's like and it's absolutely miserable, to want and want and want and still not -

"...your dream." She pauses, looks up at him, then glances back at L, who's just watching them, close and cool and calm and a thousand miles away from them both, because of the three of them he's the only one who hadn't - but that was a lie too, a condemned criminal facedown on national television and no remorse in the distorted voice of the entity known as L. Not quite a murderer, no, but of the two, which is the worst crime, self-justified torture or a righteous death for the sake of a golden future?

 _...please let something about you be real, please please please please tell me, my new world is dying..._ But that's foolish and stupid and he's not a child, and this is the mistake that will kill him because he's already started dying - what kind of a god would let this happen to himself?

 _A miscalculation, a lie, a lie, a lie and a knife to the throat, but he's so pretty, he's so pretty, why is he so pretty it would be so easy to kill him_ -

Misa's grip on him tightens, binds him back into reality, and he looks down into the fierceness of her eyes and the gentleness of her mouth as she says, swift and decisive, "We'll be happier this way."

"You think?" he murmurs, already regretting his choice, fingers itching for a pen, because maybe now they could salvage it, maybe the new world could still form, maybe maybe maybe - but he doesn't want, and he does want, and L is _right there_ and still not saying a word -

Misa smiles up at him, soft and luminous. "I won't tell you his name," she says simply, and beside him, L only blinks once, impassive as always even now that his life has been saved. "I'm going to make us happy even if it kills us."

"It might," he warns her, but she just smiles wider, soft and sweet and poison-in-honey gold.

"I'm not afraid of dying," she says, and curls her arms around the two of them and laughs, warm and bright and vibrantly alive, and he wonders if that makes her the strongest one, unafraid of the truth and unafraid of mortality.

It's close and too warm and slightly suffocating, the three of them, damned to life and clinging, and he sighs and leans into her embrace, into L, because all that's left now is survival, and if the world goes to hell, they're so far away from it that it doesn't matter anymore.

Olympus-high, Light thinks dreamily, Olympus-high and never falling.

In the quiet, all he can hear is the rush of his heartbeat in his ears, and his grip on the Note tightens reflexively - but when his fingers brush L's, he relaxes again, closing his eyes and just breathing. The rabble are nothing. All precious things are here and his own. It's almost like godhood, maybe, but he's too tired to really care anymore. Kira will live on in the hearts of believers, and the fanatics will take up the cause, and things won't be perfect but they won't be too horrible - it's only human nature, and right now, crashing from his adrenaline high, all he wants is to sleep. Life for a life, and once is once, and he wonders when his crusade melted into a vendetta.

He drowses a little, sinking back with them onto the overstuffed sofa, a tangle of limbs and cotton and lace, and falls into lazy dreams of ripping L's throat out with his teeth. His blood tastes sweet as Misa's perfume, and when he opens his eyes again, she's curled against them both, blindfolded with her hands bound behind her like something pornographic, her breath soft against his chest. Worn denim rubs softly against his cheek, new steel glints from his wrists, and he stares up at L and presses against the fingers running through his hair.

"You'll be beautiful dying," he murmurs sleepily, "you know that, don't you?"

L smiles then, soft and secret and terrifying, leaning down to brush lips and noses and ink-black hair in an upside-down caress. "You'll die screaming," he whispers, and Light closes his eyes against the thrill running down his spine.

"Sick bastard," he breathes, and L laughs, soft and husky and silvery-dark.

"Homicidal maniac," L replies, and it makes him feel beautiful.

"I'm a god," he says softly, stretching as luxuriantly as his new handcuffs will allow and tilting his chin up for a kiss.

"You're psychotic," L says mildly, and Light smiles up at him, his pretty heathen, his infidel darling. _You are the only one who sees me._

"What does that make you?" Light asks, rubbing his nose against his cheek, an over-affectionate caress from one liar to another. This changes nothing. This changes everything, and he can feel his heart beating, can drink in his breath and make it his own, curl in around him and slide his hands down his back, sweet murder singing in his veins, in the brush of delicate fingers through his hair and trailing down his throat.

L has always loved strangling him.

"Mmm. What indeed?"

Light laughs.


	12. Unraveling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feeling out new ground.

The shinigami is pale, all too-long arms and one staring eye, and Light holds her gaze steadily, brazen and calm and studiously ignoring L as the detective rips a corner of paper from the Note and - is that _duct tape_ in his hands?

"Rem!" Misa calls happily, and flings herself at the shinigami in a whirl of black lace and laughter, gloom in sunshine and murder in light. "Everything's going to be okay now, we're safe!"

Rem tilts her gaze from Misa to Light to L, silent, but the hostility flooding the room is tinged with the threat of homicide without aim, without intent, and it's no wonder Ryuk admired him, if this is the force of a shinigami's wrath. No focus, no grace, no aim - it's all pointless without human judgment, and Light wonders how he was ever afraid of this. Just a force of nature and random chance after all, a pity and a waste and a crying shame, natural as a disaster and tainted by nothing more than foolish sentiment.

Light very carefully doesn't look over as L reiterates blandly, "She's safe now," hiking up Light's sleeve and eying his arm in a way that's vaguely predatory, vaguely appealing, vaguely appalling. "This one bargained for her freedom."

"Misa knew Light loved her!" she chirps happily, and he hides his sigh behind a gentle smile. He'll never get his native sweetness back, so it pulls on his face strangely, but the fact that he once refused to use her is an insult to them both, and he's sure that in retrospect L will find it hysterically funny. He probably thought as much the first time around, but then, things have changed, and maybe it's not funny at all.

Rem looks down at Misa, then back over at him, and Light stares back, nonplussed and trying valiantly to ignore the fact that L is apparently going to tape a piece of paper to him because he's tired of sharing the notebook.

"Why?" The shinigami demands, gazing steadily at a spot over his head, and though it's a little disconcerting, the inhuman golden eyes scanning his lifespan are nothing next to the pitch-darkness of L's cool blank stare.

Light shifts a little, turning his eyes down like he's ashamed, like his plan wasn't brilliant, like she was more than a weapon for him to use. Maybe she is, maybe she isn't, but it was her choice all along. There's a strength in that, he thinks, and that's probably what makes her a better person than either one of them. "...I owed her."

L snorts something that sounds suspiciously like "liar" and slaps the Note and tape down onto his arm. Tearing it off will doubtless take a layer of skin with it, and from the tilt of his smile, L's going to enjoy doing the yanking. Sometimes he has to agree with Misa: for all of his elusiveness, for all the times his kisses have slid off of pale skin as he turned away, L is definitely a pervert.

Misa turns to Rem, clasping her hands together sweetly and beaming up at her, like some sort of angel or Madonna, like an intervention to save a life. Light remembers crimson and shale, and watches L through his lashes, ignoring the shinigami still staring at him. "Ryuuzaki is kind of insane," Misa chirps happily, like everyone else in the room is something pitiful and normal, Rem included, "but that's okay! We like him!"

Light thinks of spinning circles, lies spiraling along lies, and if they've woven a knot it will take more than just a hero's sword-slice to untangle them again. Misa, their advocate and supplicant and staunchest defender, pauses and purses her lips thoughtfully - thoughtless and aggravating, yes, but she's never been stupid, and he counts his blessings where he can find them, just another sign that he's a god of his own making. "Misa will be sad if he dies," she says slowly. "And so will Light. And Light being sad will make Misa even more upset."

It's sweet of her, but overkill, and Light diligently keeps his mouth shut. The last thing he needs to do is give Rem a reason to think Misa would be better off without him.

"You do realize," L drawls, attention already drawn back to the Note, softly flipping through the pages, "that we're going to have to tell your father and the team about this." His head tilts and he gives Light a beatific smile. "Unlike me, they don't know that you're Kira."

Light snorts and eyes the notebook. He doesn't like the thought that Higuchi has scrawled all over it, that so many people not his own have touched it. "Higuchi makes a poor decoy. And you couldn't prove it without me."

"That is possible," L agrees placidly, "and I assure you, that possibility makes me very angry. But you've forced our hands now, Kira-kun." There's a hint of mockery lacing the words, and if his hands weren't tied by will instead of steel, Light would smash in his pretty face and laugh while he bled.

Light's jaw firms as he stares past his head to the shinigami and the girl, Misa chattering happily to Rem, Rem just hanging there and watching them all with something that seems to be a mix between mistrust and disinterest. "I'm saving us all," he says quietly, "just wait, you'll see."

"Is that what you thought when you first picked up this notebook?" L asks caustically, and turns away before Light really can lunge and hit him. "Shame on you, Light Yagami."

* * *

There are cells below and apartments above, but for some strange reason they stop in a stairwell instead, away from cameras and Misa and the other detectives, still preoccupied with Higuchi and the confusion he caused. L has long since handed the matter over to Watari, and Light preens a little to know that after all of this, he's still more of a threat than either of the ones that have the eyes. Where they are is quiet and private, and Light feels a strange sense of serenity slide over him as they both settle to the floor, because this, at least, is warm and familiar, and they both know who they are.

He breathes in slowly, closes his eyes and opens them again. Only them, now, only them, and this is what he can't let go, this is his own weakness staring back at him with night-dark eyes and the faintest sliver of a smile that's feral and wildly strange in the dim half-light. "Are you going to kill me?" he wonders softly aloud, watching him breathe. _If I were in your position, what would I do?_ Murder is murder is justice, he thinks, and his lips curve just so - not so different, never so different, and in the end, who is the more mortal? The god or the legend?

L gnaws thoughtfully on his thumbnail, still crouched, still staring, still perfectly himself despite all the world's turning. Light resents it, maybe, wants to peel his skin off to see the underneath, but when all the trappings fall in the end he's still just another filthy human, still just flesh-trapped will and soul, still just as destined to die, and he watches with interest as his lips part and curve as he speaks. "If I took this away, would you know why?" L asks, dangling the notebook between his fingertips - there is no reverence for the tool of a god, and if it weren't so annoying, it would be appealing instead.

Light glances down at his arm and the duct tape. It's beyond ridiculous, but so is sitting here and not trying to shove him down the stairs, smash open his skull and splatter those lovely brains out against concrete and steel. He's not quite sure why he doesn't, even now, but there's no longer any point in speculating, no longer any point in killing him save for the sheer elation of it all, and in the end there's more joy in his life than in his death. Too dangerous, always, to let him go. "...not if you took this off me too."

"Hn." L looks away, flips open the cover of the Note and scans down the list of rules. In the quiet, Light counts heartbeats and the sound of his own breathing, and finds it almost sacred. Sublime divinity, or maybe it's fate, but either way, it's his alone to shape, his alone to hold. "...you're not dead, so this rule is a lie. Clever of you."

Light's nose wrinkles in distaste. He knows, now, that he had almost forgotten how annoyingly driven he could be when faced with something new and interesting - too much time spent lazing together, and even now his memories are jumbled and strange, syrup-thick with heavy emotion and an innocence that makes him want to recoil from his own past naïveté. Kira has always been right, and L has always been his worst distraction and the source of his clearest focus. "Is it? Perhaps the rules no longer apply once you forfeit the note."

"Wouldn't that be a rule as well?" L smiles and tosses the Note onto his lap, chuckling lowly at Light's blank stare and slowly-curling lip. "Here. Kill someone. If you drop dead in thirteen days, then we'll know."

"Are you deranged?" Light inquires, very calmly and seriously, but more than a little pleased. Still ruthless, still beautiful, still almost-perfect, still almost but not quite a god. The investigation team will never stand for it even when they do learn the truth, but it's not like L will care. He's never cared about anything else, and Light is self-aware enough to realize that he revels in his attention and in his lies, that he'll do anything to keep all of that attention, that brilliance, fixated firmly on himself, because he's the only one that's worthy. "My father will kill us both if you make me do that."

"I can supply you with a list of criminals who are both unquestionably guilty and awaiting the death penalty."

It's a golden apple on a golden platter, and a known Kira should jump at the chance, but he won't stand for being manipulated - it's a dance, but he won't be lead, not now, not then, not ever. "...I really would prefer not to." Lying lying liar, he thinks foggily, but he knows he can't have both, no matter how sweet a dream it would be. Only truce, only now, and if he stabbed him in the back tomorrow, all he'd get was a knife in the spine.

His eyes are so dark. "You have no ethical qualms about it."

Light smiles, sharp and bright and full of teeth and laughter. _I know you I know you I know you, my own mirror, my own shadow, I know you and I know your lies._ "Neither do you."

They stare at each other in the half-light, and with a pleasant shiver he realizes that holding his gaze for so long even now makes him feel like he's drowning. The newer memories make the older ones make sense, but still, it's disturbing to realize he's never seen anyone quite so beautiful outside the silver confines of a mirror. "Why me?" Light asks after a moment's silence. "Why not have a death-row inmate do it?"

"You _are_ a death-row inmate. I have the blessings of forty-eight countries to kill you whenever I so choose."

"Oh," Light says, caught somewhere between startled outrage and pleased smugness. Fools to condemn a god, all of them, but they fear Kira's power, and fear isn't a far cry from worship, in the end. "Heh."

"Indeed," L agrees, one hand digging into a pocket and coming up with his prize. "Pen?"

"No," Light counters, not reaching for the offering despite the sudden sharp pang of longing in his gut. _I still don't know your name_. "I refuse."

"In that case," L says mildly, idly toying with his pen, "I can drag you up to the roof and have Watari shoot you in the head."

Light jerks a little and stares at him, eyes too wide, breath coming just a little too sharply in his chest. He hadn't thought - not with a forfeit - that _bastard_. "Would you?"

L presses a fingertip to his lips thoughtfully, lips softly parted to nibble. Light thinks of the taste of his kisses, and waits for the skin to split, for a nail to crack, for blood to spill. It would be lovely. "It would make me sad," L says decisively. "Yes. I would be very upset."

Light closes his eyes and exhales more shakily than he wants to admit. Truth and truth and lies, again, but if he'd won, he would never cry, never regret, only live with a quiet ache overwhelmed with the power of a god. "So you won't do it."

It wins him a head-tilt and one long, slow blink. "Why ever not?"

"I'm not killing you, am I?" he points out, and crushes the tiny voice inside that whispers _yesyesyes_ and _nonotyounonever_. "And I'm too valuable for you to waste like that."

L stares at him again, and he stares back, unruffled now, thinking of shadows and silence and laughter that no one can hear. Apples and a manic grin, and hadn't he once said...? "Mmm. Very well, we will have someone else test it."

"Thank you," Light says mildly, leaning back and closing his eyes. He doesn't jump when pale fingers ghost down his exposed throat, just tilts his head up to accept the kiss, soft and cool and sweet.

"And the real reason?" L murmurs against his cheek, knife-sharp inquiry sheathed in velvet, sharp white teeth half-hidden behind the softness of his lips.

Light smiles serenely. "I like our playing field the way it is."

"And your confession, Kira-kun?"

Light considers for a moment, then lets his smile slide into wildness, pleased with the husky chuckle he receives in reply. "That," he murmurs, opening his eyes to stare into forever, "that much I can give you."

* * *

It's early morning by the time they make their way back down to the investigation team, bypassing Higuchi entirely in favor of a breakfast of pastries and sweet tea. Light looks at his father's haggard expression and frowns softly - but still, it's all right, the man had known what he was doing when he decided to stay with the team. They're almost swarmed when they walk in, a rush of crumpled suits and half-shouted demands that slowly falter as one by one they notice the new bindings, the Note carelessly dangling from L's fingertips, the wash of serenity around them.

Light breathes in slowly and hides a smile. It's all so normal, except where it isn't, and there is something lovely in L's calm disinterest and utterly blank stare, something wonderful in his certainty and calmness.

"...Ryuuzaki?" Mogi asks once all has fallen silent, and Light lifts his head and fixes them all with a placid gaze. Beside him, L shrugs, and it's all he can do not to laugh outright, because the world is so very strange, and everything is so very normal. Nothing has changed except a confirmation and a soft withdrawal, and if he leaned over, he might steal a kiss before being shoved away.

"Hmn?"

The detectives exchange uncertain glances, but it's Aizawa who finally speaks up, unusually hesitant. "What are you... why...?"

"Kira," L says bluntly, and blinks back at the dumbfounded investigation team.

"You don't mean... Light...?" His father takes a step back, stares at him with devastated eyes. It's an expression he hasn't seen in a while, and he does his best not to laugh in his face, because he's a good man, if not a great one. So much self-sacrifice, and for what? His mask has been exquisite, he knows, but he's never been that innocent, and feels the vaguest stirrings of pity for a man with so much potential and so much blindness.

Instead, Light pastes on a small, brave smile and gives an artless little shrug of the shoulders that he knows he's picked up from L. It makes them both look younger, but after so much freedom to just _be_ now it feels like his face is cracking. "I'm sorry, dad. We all knew it was a possibility."

And just like that, the air seems sucked out of the room, and the world goes still and sharp as fingers clench into paper and crumpled suits, as worldviews are knocked askew and the men he's been working with slowly realize just what he is and always has been. Matsuda crumples to the floor, Ide begins to swear softly and steadily, Mogi turns sharply away and slams a fist into the wall, Aizawa stumbles back and slumps down into an abandoned chair, and his father - his father just looks at him with mute horror and collapses onto the couch behind him.

Light just closes his eyes and instinctively follows the familiar sound of L's soft tread over to the couches and their waiting breakfast. Blind and blind, he remembers, and sinks down as L hops up, trusting him not to let him fall, trusting him to expect his expectations.

They sit closer now than they ever have in front of the others, not quite curled together, not quite apart. Mirror mirror, Light thinks, and rests his cheek against L's shoulder, breathing in the calm.

Swearing and crumpling and silence, and underneath the vague dreaminess of it all, Matsuda's starting to cry. It's sweet, if pathetic, and Light shakes his head and bites into the doughnut L is holding for him, chocolate cream spilling out the sides and running down the pale lengths of L's fingers. "Slob," Light mutters, feeling sleepy with contentment, with the certainty that L will rip his head off and never look back if he ever falters, with the coolness of the watch weighing heavy on his wrist beneath the lightness of the handcuffs, familiar enough that it's long since ceased to bother him.

L idly licks off the spilled cream, curling a half-smile at Light, soft and dark and full of silence. Light tilts his head down and peers at him through his lashes, playing off his youth and beauty, playing off the danger in his answering smile.

"Too sweet," he drawls, and watches as those same pale fingers dance over the extensive spread and pluck up a blood-red apple.

"Is this better, Kira-kun?" L croons softly, dangling it by a stem pinched between index finger and thumb.

"I suppose that would be appropriate," Light says mildly, straightening up. "Hold it for me?"

"Of course," L agrees, and holds his gaze as he leans in and bites down. The fruit is crisp and sweet and delicious, and he likes the way it crunches in his teeth, likes the way L is looking at him, likes the way he is looking back to see himself reflected in the infinity of his eyes.

Behind him, ten feet and a million miles away, he can almost hear the sound of his father's heart breaking.


	13. Psychobabble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waltzing for the masses.

There are questions once the shock starts to dissolve, Aiber and Wedy demanding instructions for dealing with Higuchi, and the investigative team turning down the breakfast they've been sharing. Light finds himself missing the chain, missing having his hands free, and deeply resenting the fact that he can't reach for him anymore, can't slide his hands in his pockets or down his spine, can't poke and prod him into dealing with their annoyances instead of keeping his nose buried in the notebook and leaving him mostly on his own to deal with the desperate incomprehension of the investigation team. At least Matsuda's finally stopped crying, though his eyes are still red and glazed with what's either shock or horror or both, and as always, it's nothing but annoying.

"I'm first Kira, of course," Light says placidly, deliberately staring somewhere past his father's left shoulder, ignoring the tension threaded throughout every body in the room save for his own and L's. Trembling shoulders, clenched teeth, and he lets his lashes droop and briefly entertains a thought of curling himself around L just to watch them stare. Stupefied horror is stupefied horror, no matter what its cause, but he's been a suspect long enough to know that the force of L's unsubstantiated suspicions would be enough to damn him in any court in the world. "And be careful of Misa, she's got the eyes like Higuchi, although she seems to be cooperating with us with a minimal amount of fuss."

He turns a thoughtful gaze towards the detective still perched beside him, still the same as he ever was, and just watches him for a long moment's silence. They haven't planned anything so far, at least not out loud, but... "I assume we'll be turning him in in our place?"

L glances up, nods, and promptly returns to scanning the notebook and stacking sugar cubes. It looks like he's building a castle, but Light watches the layout and knows it's a fortress to bind him. It doesn't matter - the walls are for protection as much as isolation, and no one but L will ever be able to be his keeper and his kept. _My choice,_ he thinks smugly, _my choice and my future and my dreams are still alive_.

"You deserve the death penalty you would receive in court, of course," L says softly, dark eyes flickering between notepaper and his ever-growing tower, spiraling now to either arch delicately towards heaven or crash to the ground, "but I won't waste your mind."

"Mmm," he agrees softly, and glances back at the sound of his father's half-muffled exclamation, frowning at his puzzled face. "What?" he asks quietly, straightening up a little, trying to throw off the sense of lazy satisfaction that's been keeping him half-dreamy even as he spells out the obvious for the sake of the rest of the team. "You think he'd let me be a martyr to my own cause?"

 _Isn't this obvious?_ he thinks in disgust, _Pay attention, open your eyes, look! You thought you could ever reach me?_

"If I am exposed as Kira, if I am executed, then my cause will never die, regardless of whether or not it's a private or a public execution. My followers" - the thought is delicious and pitying all at once - "will believe anything to keep their faith alive." Taken up by fools and madmen, pale imitations of his own grace, but it's only now he's realizing what mortality means, and Kira will not go to heaven or hell in the end. L probably will just to spite him, because he's a bastard like that, so if he doesn't hold on now his sacrifice will be for nothing, for all that Kira is immortal.

"Light..." His father sounds so old, and his hair is streaked with gray, and Light eyes him through his lashes and wonders why he can't quite catalogue the expression on his face. Shouldn't he of all people be glad at this surrender? Shouldn't he be proud, for what he's done, for what he's changed, even for yielding to the forces of the law? _I didn't want to hurt you,_ he thinks but doesn't say, _but if you're not going to be of any use to me then I don't have time to bother with you._

"I make a much more inspiring god than Higuchi ever could, you know," Light points out, calm and matter-of-fact, and ignores the way they all flinch at the reminder of what he's done. Fools and idiots, he thinks, and knows that they still can't quite believe it, not of their golden boy, so bright and brilliant and beautiful. It's not acting if it's true, but L has always been the only one to see him. "I'm young and attractive and I've given people hope. Kira will live forever no matter what happens, but if I died now they'd love me even more - every religion loves its tragedy."

Fanaticism is fanaticism, however misguided, and Misa is living proof of his own divinity. He doesn't need to race anymore, and the adrenaline thrill of changing the world has softened these past months into calmness and certainty and carefully curbed passion, of curling up beside him and trailing his fingers down his body, trying to feel out where the dagger has been hidden, and he's long since realized that his weapon of choice is sugar-sweet poison, so he's adjusted accordingly, clinging ever-closer and offering back his own. It's perfect, it will be perfect, and L will never ever let him go. _I did this to myself,_ he thinks, soft and sleepy and self-satisfied, glancing through his lashes back at his couchmate and smiling. _I did this for me and I have never been wrong._

"Kira is a selfish, spoiled child." L's answering smile is small and secretive and cruel, but his voice is utterly bland as he abandons the tower for dropping sugar cubes into tea in a delicate saucer. _Congratulations on the fine son you've raised, Chief Yagami,_ he doesn't say. _I'm sure you must be proud of all of his success._ "But the masses will only see an idiot child trying to save the world by destroying it."

Light's toes curl slightly, annoyance and amusement warring with smug contentment and the urge to slam his cuffed fists into the side of his head. "The numbers don't lie, Ryuuzaki," he says softly instead, looking away like he's shy and ashamed and admitting a painful truth only because that's the kind of good, honest boy that he is, the one his father is so proud of raising, the one they'd been longing to admit into their fold once he was old enough. He's stolen kisses with this pose, from him and Misa both, but right now it's a show for the others, unappreciative audience that they are. "No matter what I think of it now, I had more of an effect on the crime rate than you ever will."

"You are also a serial killer," L says flatly, "and thusly I am not inclined to listen to your self-delusional justifications for your homicidal rampages." He pauses for a moment, fingertips hovering over the sugar bowl, before a cube crunches to powder in his grip. "Also, you are a magnificent liar. Anyone would think you might feel remorse for you actions."

Light gives him a pretty, careless smile, a lie to a liar to a lie. He has never rampaged in his life, and the bastard knows it. "I gave myself up to you, didn't I?"

L smirks back at him, eyes laughing, and flicks crystal sugar-dust off of his fingertips. "Perhaps you are finally growing up."

Light desperately stifles a laugh of his own, because everything is so ridiculous, because there's so much denial flooding the room that it's hard to breathe, because everyone's so blind but the truth is so clear, because the path to godhood has gone so convoluted that the only way up is down and the only way to divinity is mortality. Truce is truce is war engaged, and he's never seen such a magnificent hypocrite - if he weren't so amused it would be appalling, and L has always been the only enemy he's ever wanted. He knows if he starts laughing, he won't be able to stop, and that's pathetic and hilarious but he can't let his father and the other idiots know just how fragile his sanity is, because his only regret is that he had to confess to make it work, but L is the only one who deserves the truth, because L is the only one who knows it, and neither one of them is entirely sane, probably, but he can't quite bring himself to care anymore.

His facade is falling to pieces, and for once he can't be bothered to put it back together again. There are better ways to spend his time, because the only times L has ever believed him were when he was forced to, and even then he'd still known that he was a liar.

L turns back to his castle, but glances back up to where Soichiro - _My father,_ Light reminds himself, _this man is still my father and he's just had a severe shock and I should be making overtures of comfort and reassurance that are hampered by my obvious guilt and shame_ \- is still slumped in his chair, head in his hands. Light blinks, frowns a little, and idly hopes he doesn't have another heart attack - the irony would make Ryuk laugh, if it ever got back to him, and for all that he's been an interesting companion, his shinigami has what is perhaps the most annoying laughter in this or any other world.

"You may lie to your family, if you like," L says suddenly, still staring at Soichiro like he's a rather uninteresting bug under a microscope, like he's poking him in an effort to make him do something interesting instead of just sitting there, playing dead while his world collapses out from underneath him. "I'm certain they would feel better about the situation if they did not know that your son is a serial killer."

...his family? Sayu. His mother. Strange, to think of them now, after so long apart, after hardly thinking about them at all these past few months. They'd be horrified - at least his mother would be, but Sayu has always idolized him, so maybe not...? He can't quite picture her an avid supporter, but he can't see her pitted against him, either, and she's always been a good girl, if a little silly and terribly uninteresting in the way that most almost-teenage girls are. Light shifts uncomfortably, swallowing an inappropriate giggle and the thought of his little sister founding a fan club, and pointedly says " _Was._ I'm not Kira anymore, Ryuuzaki, we all know that now. I won't be, not even for you." _I will never not be Kira, and you will never not be L._

He can feel the strangeness of the statement in the way that his father shifts his weight, the way that Matsuda flinches, but it's like breathing or dreaming or both, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for him, nothing nothing nothing nothing at all.

L just hums a little, off-key and childish and strange. "Liar, liar, pants on fire~" he singsongs, and Light stares at him, because the English words make no sense whatsoever, and L just smiles. If they were alone, he would probably blow him a kiss, and the thought of immolation really isn't that bad, all things considered, so long as he can take L with him.

The thought makes him pause, and blink, and frown, remembering laughter and an idle dream, and yes, yes, he does still want to die together, he does want to cling to him while he breathes his last, he does want to be the one to break that fragile shell and crush that beautiful mind, he does, he does, he does. He wants to die with him, only with him, and if Misa pleads for it they can take her too, murder-suicide and the most perfect way to end a perfect life.

Immortality sounds like it would be awfully boring, anyway.

He's shaken out of his reverie when L speaks again, a low drawl that proves he's just as bored with the others as he is. "Killing him would serve no purpose. I believe that Light would be much more useful as an assistant to me - to pay his debt to society, at least a little bit. Of course he will be kept in detention, as any other prisoner would be." The sarcasm is thick enough to breathe in, and L pauses for a moment, apparently relishing the way they all seem to gag on it. "Also, should he attempt to turn back to his Kira-like ways, I can snap his neck with relative ease assuming he is close by me."

Light eyes the delicate lengths of his fingers, remembers the brush of their coolness against his throat, and the smoothness of the skin stretched over his spine when he runs his hands up his back, and thinks of gleaming steel and ruby-bright blood. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a complete freak of nature?" is what he says instead of laughing and drawing a counter, instead of painting the world in black ink. He doesn't think it's a coincidence that his world has shifted to encompass the starkness of white and black, and the impossibility of the two coexisting.

"Often."

Light snorts, shaking his head chidingly, more habit than deliberate act, though the words are meant to sting unpleasant truths home to the investigation team. _This is the man you chose to follow when you could have had me._ "You're not going to kill me because then you'd be bored, that's all," he drawls, but inside he's preening at the reactions they can't quite stifle, at the dark look Aizawa flashes L, who just stares back at him guilelessly.

"You needn't sound so incredulous, Light-kun. After all, you did the same thing."

Touché, he acknowledges, the faintest of smiles curling his lips. "...I suppose," he says, careful to keep his voice mild and half-ashamed, careful to look away, and promptly has to stifle an inappropriate snicker at the look on his father's face. Hadn't he said once, early on, that he was happy that Light was finally acting his age? Brawling with L has always been the one thing that makes them both something approaching normal, but now that the dance is open for viewing, the audience is starting to learn just how raw it is, and as always, they're flinching away.

"Light..." His father's voice sounds very far away.

He closes his eyes for a long moment, tilting his head to look younger and resigned and tragic, and offers his father a pained smile. "...it's been difficult, father," he murmurs theatrically, "if Ryuuzaki hadn't been with me when I got the Note back, I don't think I could have fought off its influence... it's evil, father." He opens his eyes wide, bites his lip like a child. "I... I know that makes me weak, that I couldn't handle it on my own..."

Soichiro stares at him. Light stares down at his shoes. "...I just feel like... being around Ryuuzaki gives me a purpose, a reason to fight it off..." He hunches in on himself, projecting shame and awkwardness, just a teenager drowning in confusion and a tinge of homoerotic frustration. "I couldn't kill my best friend. Not even being Kira could make me hurt-" a hitch of breath, a glance upward as if seeking salvation, "make me hurt anyone I care about..."

Soichiro is wavering, he knows, wanting to believe him, believe _in_ him, like he was only confused, like the Note itself could have seduced him into becoming a killer. Like it wasn't his choice to cleanse the world of evil, like it wasn't a great dream of peace and prosperity, like he wasn't actually a god. His father's face is a portrait in tortured confusion, and it's so _hard_ not to laugh.

"I wanted to save people," he says softly, "I wanted to make the world a better place, but..."

He chances a glance over at L. His eyes are dark and cruel and laughing, and Light tilts his head just slightly to curl him a secret half-smile bubbling with mischief and something close to glee. "It's easier to think this way," he says, shamelessly making it up as he goes along, "I can see now how everything went wrong, but I don't think trying to change the world is wrong."

"...Light..." his father murmurs, and his eyes are tired and terribly old. Light knows he's the one who etched those lines in his face, and feels no guilt for it. His father made the decision to stand against him, and while it's sad, it mostly reinforces how thinly worn the world has made him. Saving it will save him, too, but now his path is shrouded, and the golden way is dead. He's always known that L is anything but justice. "...do you really believe that?"

"I'm not wrong," he says, and folds his bound hands peacefully in front of him. Breathe, he thinks, breathe and know you're still alive. And don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh while L is watching you, don't spoil the game just to win his smile.

There's a long moment of silence, his father's fists clenching, a flicker of something in his eyes that Light can't quite identify. "Are you lying to me, Light?" he asks, slow and evenly, a tone he hasn't heard since the age of seven. A year or so ago, it might have mattered to him, might have sparked indignation or embarrassment, but it's been a very long time since his father's opinion has really mattered, and maybe he never really was the son his father had wanted after all.

"I could be," he says softly, and lifts a soft, appealing gaze towards his father, widening his eyes just so and drawing on all the acting skill he possesses, the memory of a conviction he'd never really felt at all. "Why, father? What do you want to believe?"

Behind his teacup, L is chuckling, dark and soft and husky. Light glances at him through lazy eyes and smiles, a little giddy, a little thrilled, warmth curling low in his belly, pooling in his insides and flooding him with slow heat.

I love you, he mouths silently in English, and L puts down his cup and laughs outright, jagged around the edges and just mad enough to be appealing.

The way the investigation team collectively cringes back in blatant horror is the funniest thing he's seen all month.


	14. Golden Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slippage.

They send the others out to fetch Misa's notebook while his father retires to another room, and Light watches placidly as L writes email after email, arranging for Higuchi's proper turnover to the authorities, artfully avoiding any mention of notebooks but emphasizing the danger of his eyes. His lips twitch at the particularly biting nature of the message to the NPA - unsurprisingly, L holds a grudge, but Light congratulates himself for a job well-done even as the words unwind him.

It takes a fair amount of wiggling, shoving, and a brief scuffle before Light is able to curl up against L's side and close his eyes. The dull clack of the keys is as familiar as breathing, and his limbs are a jumble beneath him and L has the pokiest ribcage known to man, but it's soft and warm where he's wedged between him and the edge of the couch, and he sighs softly and wishes he could throw an arm over his eyes. He's just dozing off against him when his father returns, and Light slits his eyes open as he staggers across the room to the couch opposite and sits down slowly, visibly pale and faintly shaking. Light remembers that he has begun complaining of stiff joints these days, early-onset arthritis if he's one to guess, and feels a faint stirring of what might have been pity if it were any stronger.

"Light... can I talk to you alone?"

Light, caught mid-yawn and stretching, blinks blearily in his father's general direction and frowns, suddenly and unexpectedly startled, then casts a puzzled glance over at L. "...alone?" he echoes blankly. "If you want, dad, but Ryuuzaki won't allow-"

"On the contrary," L drawls, and Light feels himself go utterly still even if he doesn't know why. "I think you would benefit from a private talk with your father. I'm sure the two of you have much to discuss... and we have an interrogation room that should serve that purpose nicely."

Soichiro frowns, folding his hands together in a gesture that isn't quite wringing. "...Ryuuzaki, I meant privately, not under surveillance..."

A moment of silence passes that is just as pointed as his words when he next speaks. "I am trying to keep your son from killing you."

Light glares at him, and when he opens his mouth, it's as much for his father's benefit as his own wounded pride. "I've never killed anyone close to me, you know that, and I certainly wouldn't kill my family or anyone else that I've personally-"

"You know," L interrupts thoughtfully, "I never remembered to give Misa her phone back."

Light doesn't flinch, but the softly coiling warmth in his belly grows cool and still and quiet in the face of his quiet outrage. _You don't count,_ he thinks vaguely, well aware that his eyes have slitted and he's all but baring his teeth, _you of all people don't count, you don't and you know it, you fucking hypocrite!_

"Light...?" his father says cautiously, and it takes him a long, confused moment to tear his gaze away from L and focus on his father instead.

"Hm? ...oh. Of course, father, whatever you'd like."

Light glances back over his shoulder as he exits the room, and doesn't know what to think of the relief he feels - L is still watching him, but the only god he knows how to thank is himself, and he doesn't even know why he wants to do that much, if anything at all.

* * *

It's only been a very quiet five minutes, but Light already doesn't like this room. There's a table and two chairs and one obvious camera in the corner and probably fifteen more secreted elsewhere, and in front of him there is only his father surrounded by blank walls and a barred door. Perfectly bland, perfectly impersonal, perfectly designed to drive people mad.

It's the first time in months he's been separated from L, and he finds that disturbing, and finds his own disturbance disturbing, but of course the thoughts he's having are ridiculous, completely insane, because he's a god, a god, not a child and never, never a victim.

Self-awareness makes it all untrue, and what stilled his hand was neither loyalty nor love.

L is watching him, and for once he can't watch back. It makes his skin itch, reminds him of before, and he thinks of the taste of his tongue and the touch of his hands in the dark, and the curve of his throat as he breathes. Too close is never close enough, and he wants to crawl into his skin, peel back soft flesh and sink inside forever, just to make sure he never gets away. Jewel of a mind, he thinks, but if what Ryuuzaki's been humming this past week is right then all the pretty things are going to hell, and he casts a dark glance at the metal biting his wrists, at the prison of flesh and steel and stone that keeps him away from the one person he can never run from.

Polarized magnets, he thinks, and locks and keys and the idea of soulmates is silly and nebulous, dreamed up to make the loneliness bearable and to breach immeasurable distance. Fantasies, one and all, and delusions are just fantasies a little too real to really be, products of a mind softly twisted, and in the silence between heartbeats, the ugly world is beautiful.

Five minutes apart and already missing him. Dependency, then, and physical attraction and trepidation and he's planned for this, for all of this, because even at the beginning he knew he'd have to get close, so close, because for all their spread of pawns he's only been ever dancing for one. _I will give my love an apple,_ he thinks, and it's enough to make him laugh a little, to smile and flutter his lashes at the camera, because he knows he's watching, he's always watching, and he hasn't yet been able to read him well enough, hasn't yet been able to tell if the yearning is just his own.

It probably is, and that's all right too, just another step to spin and fall into place, just another smile and concession to his own beauty, his own grace and cleverness, and whatever it is that's pulled him down is different enough to make him smile, to make him laugh and preen and tug him closer, because it's perfect, just perfect that his only equal is the only one who doesn't want him.

"Light?" his father says, and he blinks attentively back at him, expression smoothing into placidity even as his attention begins to slide away, still seeking the hidden cameras, still wondering where his eyes are. "Light, look at me."

He looks into the image of himself reflected on the light in his father's glasses, and thinks of drowning pools and still water, and if everything he remembers is right then the flash of cold steel means passion and love. He takes a moment to analyze his own thought process, realizes that he's in desperate need of more than the single nap he's taken, and has the distant, sleepy thought that it must be raining. Baptism is in the blood he hasn't yet shed, and everything new is everything old reshaped and reshorn by the him-that-wasn't, by the him-that-could-have-been.

Memory loss is a tricky thing, and he can't quite recall when he decided that forfeiting the note would be the best of plans, but then again, he's only underestimated himself, and he is, after all, a god. That makes L the devil, and the comparison is perfect, because Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels. Light-bringer, he thinks, and laughs again, because his parents named him so rightly and he doesn't know L's name, but something deep in him wants it to be perfect, all shadows and silence and exoticism, vowels rolled and syllables curled in a foreign tongue.

Light has always been a dreamer, with passion enough to make those dreams real, and he thinks of the notepaper tucked away in his watch and the boy somewhere not so far away and the girl with eyes clear enough to see, and oh, he's made beauty out of rot, called it to himself and swept the rest away in the tides.

Two and a half hours of sleep in the last forty-eight, he estimates, maybe a little bit longer. That explains the blurriness and the bleariness and the way his thoughts are chasing one another in circles.

It's a little lonely, in this quiet, in the sounds he's straining to hear. Shifting and slow creaking and the faint low hum of fluorescent lighting, but no clink of china and no crunch of sugar and no slurp of tea, and no chime of steel to accompany each twitch and turn.

When he finally focuses again, across from him, Soichiro is watching with a weary expression, exhaustion dripping from every pore. "Light... son..."

"Father?" he says, "I'm... sorry, everything's... kind of weird right now. I'm having trouble concentrating." That sounds right, he thinks, shades of the studious boy he used to be, and uncertainty to lay his father's fears to rest. Nothing's changed, and everything has, and how much of the masquerade is habit and how much is still poise has started slipping, but there are broken pieces littering the ground, and of all the world, only Misa and L have reached past it to squeeze his insides out again.

"...are you all right? Do you need to rest?"

Yes. Yes. Light needs to sleep for eight hours every twenty-four to perform at peak mental and physical functioning, but he lives with an insomniac and too much sugar tastes like poison, like crashing from an adrenaline high and being torn from a soft dark place and thrust into the light. It makes his eyes sting and his stomach churn, because all he's eaten is an apple and some doughnut cream and he's not quite shinigami, not quite human, and he can't survive on blood alone.

He thinks that he would like to.

"I'm fine, dad. What did you want to talk about?" The smooth lines come out as a too-polished recitation, and he winces at the cool sound, at the look of blank disbelief that spreads across Soichiro's face. Distraction means playacting, and even if he can't be blamed for being preoccupied, that slip shows a little too much skin, and it's all he can do not to grimace at his own fumble. Other people aren't meant to see, especially not this man, but if it's all falling down anyway, he wants to be showing off on purpose, not because he's too tired to play his part.

L would have laughed, but glancing down at his father's clenched fists, he knows it's all the man can do not to slap him. It's the first time in a very long time that he's seen his father look this way, and he lowers his lashes and fumbles for a cover. "I mean... I know... you must be ashamed of me, and... it's..." he draws a wavering breath, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, it's just... I... I'm still trying to hang onto being normal, even though I know I shouldn't, and... I'm sorry."

His father just stares at him for a long while, and Light remembers the click of the safety being thumbed off, and the sound of Misa's panicked gasps, and the feel of blood welling beneath his nails. Puppet strings on puppet strings, but in that moment, at least, he'd been afraid of his father.

 _Pathetic_ , he thinks, and remembers the cool pitilessness of his smile. At the time it had made his breath catch and tears sting his eyes, but the memory is vibrant and beautiful in its clarity, and even through the pain of the moment he remembers marveling at the cruelty and brilliance of the move.

God, he _loves_ L.

"I know this isn't what you wanted for me." He says it, and it's true, because his father is a good man and always has been, so he can give him that much, at least, because it costs nothing for his game, and what man wouldn't be sympathetic to his only son?

"Light... can you tell me why?"

Light blinks over at his carefully-controlled father and heaves a soft sigh, already annoyed with the conversation before it's even begun. "Does it really matter at this point...? I gave myself up because I don't think that way anymore," he lies flawlessly, carefully looking him in the eyes, like he's resigned and exhausted and young, so very young, like he's in over his head and drowning.

Mostly he's sleepy and bored and feeling surly at being abandoned, but his father doesn't need to know that, and if L can't see it then he deserves to be fooled.

The worried frown he receives in reply is predictable and boring and paternal, but his father gave up all rights to him the instant he handed himself over to L, and Light's been slipping away almost since he first learned to talk. He's never belonged to his family, not really, for all that they've been kind to him, and the first time he saw L was like a kick to the spine, an impact with force enough to start him breathing. He'd learned when he was young, and taken what he could from him, and in that respect, he thinks, Soichiro Yagami has served him well. Such a passionate man, his father, it's a pity he's so misguided. "Of course it does!"

He turns his gaze away, looking towards the cameras, through glass and plastic and steel, towards the sanctuary of the only person in the world who understands him. "I disagree," is all he says, "I've changed in ways I don't expect you to understand - and for what it's worth, I am sorry. Just... not for what you would think are the right reasons."

His father's face tightens, but Light just blows out a bored sigh and taps one finger rhythmically on the table - Morse code for 'get me out of here.'

"Light," his father says again, "was it something that-"

"Dad," he says flatly, "I'm not insane, you and mom aren't to blame, and I started to figure out what I was doing within a week of getting the Note. I don't regret any of the decisions I've made since then."

"...Light..."

He's already on his feet and turning to face the door. "I know I was wrong, and I'm sorry I'm not who you thought I was." He pauses for a moment, then offers him a half-smile over his shoulder. "You've still got Sayu," he points out gently. "She's normal."

He watches the barb bite deep, and thinks of L murmuring in the dark - _such a petty little godling you are_ \- and he smiles, just a little, because watching his world collapse in on itself is strangely exhilarating, and despite the cuffs and cameras and the bullet with his name on it, he's never felt this free.

"...you say Sayu is normal. Why would you say that, Light?"

Light blinks back over at him. "Hmm? Well - she is, dad, you know that she's not anything like me."

"...like you," his father repeats slowly, folding his hands. "Light... what exactly is your relationship with Ryuuzaki?"

Light stares blankly at him for a long moment, holding very still and feeling vaguely ridiculous, rather abruptly aware that for all of his brilliance and everything he's done, despite the madness and the darkness and the deaths his father knows he's caused, the man also sees him as nothing more than his _child_. It's almost stupefying, in a way, and he adjusts his answer accordingly, fumbling the way any teenager would. "He's my best friend, dad, you know that, that's the whole reason I-"

His father looks very old, and very, very tired, and maybe he sees a little more clearly than he thought. "I'm neither blind nor stupid, Light."

...interesting. He hadn't thought that his father would have the courage to acknowledge it, at least not openly, but then again, he hasn't honestly been considering his reactions - it's not like they actually matter, after all, and soon enough he'll be free of this baggage forever.

Just a little more time to claim all of the world.

Light closes his eyes and just breathes in for a moment, and when he opens them again, he's smiling faintly, not for his father and not for L, but for himself, and for the new world he hasn't forgotten. "...he understands me," Light says, simple and soft and biting, "even if he'd died, he would still be the most important person in my life."

"...Light..."

"He's always known I was Kira," Light says flatly. "Always."

"...you turned yourself in," Soichiro says slowly, "and I am proud of you for that. Life in prison will be-"

"I killed twelve FBI agents," Light says, soft and smooth and calm, "they were only doing their jobs, but they were getting in the way. And I did it to show off." His lips curl in a smile that's sincere, all soft thick glee and delicious satisfaction. "I killed them because I was playing with L, and he knew that from the start." He watches his father from under the fall of his too-long bangs, watches as he reels back, watches the disappointment and dismay settle in, until the man is staring at him like a stranger. "He won't put me in prison and he won't let me go."

Soichiro grows still as he gathers his composure about him like a blanket. "I don't trust that man with your safety," he says finally, and Light laughs, startled enough that it's genuine.

"You don't have to worry about me," he says gently, still honestly amused by the utter absurdity of the sentiment, still amazed that he can see so clearly and still not _see_ , "he wouldn't let anyone else kill me, and I won't let anyone else kill him. That honor is mine."

"Light..."

"Father."

"...what happened to you?"

Light blinks slowly, neat and composed, and folds his hands together, knowing the soft clink of steel on steel will make his father flinch. "Nothing at all, father. Nothing at all."

There are tears in Soichiro's eyes, and looking at him, Light feels nothing at all.

This little room and this little world are so petty, and this man is just a man, nothing more. A good man, a steadfast man, a man he once admired, but he's grown up now, and found everything he's ever wanted.

Soichiro Yagami's dreams are dying while he watches and suppresses the urge to tap his foot in boredom. Light doesn't understand why the process is taking so long--by all rights, they should have been dead about three hours ago.

* * *

When he steps out of the room, padding quietly behind his father, L is waiting, and that's all it takes for his eyes to fall-half lidded and his pretty mask to slide away, a smug smile curling his lips and his posture shifting from attentive poise to lazy invitation.

He can hear his father suppressing a startled gasp--horror, perhaps? He's never really seen Kira's face because he's too blind, and he's never seen the way he acts around L when they're alone, but it shouldn't be a surprise. It's not like he doesn't know, now, and while it's a compliment to his own skills the obliviousness still chafes, because shouldn't it have been obvious that the world revolved around only him?

A step and a shove and then his back is to the wall and he's crooning softly, pressing forward to bite at the tongue in his mouth, to settle his hands on his chest and curl his fingers into soft thick fabric.

This must be what happiness feels like, he thinks dimly, and doesn't flinch when long fingers tighten warningly around his throat, just enough to make him gasp a little, just enough to make him smile.

He rests his cheek against L's shoulder and watches through slitted eyes as his father walks away.

"Bastard," he whispers against soft pale skin, voice thick with affection and scorn, "you're a vicious bastard."

"Watari doesn't approve of you either, you know," L murmurs against his ear, and Light buries his face against his neck to muffle his laughter. "Thirteen point four percent probability that your father commits suicide tonight," L continues, bland and cool, and Light tilts his chin up and mouths 'what a pity' against his lips.

His father is a good man, the sort of man he's built this new world for, and it's just too bad that he doesn't see it that way, but now there's nothing to be done about it.

If needs be, he can send flowers to the funeral.


	15. The Way of All Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freedom.

\- 9:08 A.M. -

Light watches the way the eyes of the team members skitter, then flashes a blinding-bright smile and tosses the apple neatly upwards.

It stops, hangs, and crunches so loud that it echoes in the resounding silence.

Light laughs. "I'll show you something fun, Ryuk," he says, lips curled with happy mischief, and leans back into L's arms and reaches cuffed hands up to pull him down into a kiss that's slow and lingering, a show as much for his father as it is for his shinigami, the only one who'll laugh with him, with them both. He smiles against his lips as L shifts and brushes black leather against his skin, and there, that's it, mad cackling hoarse laughter, annoying as hell, but familiar, and it's a bit of a wonder that he's missed it.

"You're both insane!" his shinigami crows, and Light tilts his head back and laughs with him, warm and loose and lazy, reveling in the soft chuckle that's nearly drowned out by their laughter, and the long, callused fingers sliding beneath his shirt and stroking his belly slowly, like he's something precious, like he's something deadly, and yes, yes, yes, he's happy.

* * *  
\- 10:53 A.M. -

Tick-tock, tick-tock, like a heartbeat or the flutter of warm breath past his lips, and he cups his chin in his hand and smiles lazily, every bit the prize but never the prey. He watches the team scurry around the room through drooping lashes, through slightly manic giggles that he's decided to put on mostly because they make Matsuda squeak and drop papers, no matter how red his eyes are, no matter how much he knows his fingers would like to twitch towards his gun.

It's kind of fun to watch, no matter that he might get shot for it. L probably wouldn't stand for it anyway, and it's not like it would be the first time for someone he knew and trusted to level a gun at his face.

One-two-three, he counts, one-two-three in a pendulum swing, and there are monsters in the air and logistics to puzzle over, a couch for him to sprawl on and careful insights to breathe out past gently-parted lips, because Soichiro Yagami's beautiful dutiful son has his bare feet propped up on cushions and the blood of thousands on his hands.

He spared L for many things, he thinks, but most of all for showing him he doesn't have to play along with the rest of the world, because it feels like he's sloughed off a dead skin, and it's funny how being trapped in a cage makes it so easy to breathe, how blatant favoritism and clear corruption in the highest levels of power--everything he once fought against--how sweet it all is when all that is his own.

Hypocrisy is for mortals, capriciousness for gods, and he's well aware of which of the two he is.

There's something to be said for childishness and immaturity, and even more for the lazy drawl spilling through the air, low and calm and slow for those minds that just can't keep up because of sluggishness and shock, and Light pokes his toes against L's side and thinks about molasses, that strange thick syrup that L had drizzled over tiny delicate cookies, and the peculiarity of the taste on his tongue, sweetness dark and heavy enough to drown in, and there's an alluring idea, sinking into shadows and never ever letting him go.

"In the event of my death," L is saying, smooth and slow, maybe a little bit cranky, because he's been trying to explain this for the last ten minutes and none of them understand, "Light Yagami will be terminated immediately."

Silence. Then, someone breathes in, and then they're talking again, a muted mutter that resolves itself into a low-voiced demand, rough with sleep-deprivation and emotional exhaustion. "How long? How long will you let this go on?"

Light's not really paying attention to who's talking, because he's sleepy enough to be completely engrossed in trying to wiggle his toes underneath the waistband of L's jeans, but even he looks up at that, because that's a very stupid question for even Matsuda to be asking.

L casts him a long sideways glace, and Light lifts one shoulder in a shrug, because he knows they're slow but some things are beyond even his understanding, at least when he's this tired.

"When I die," L clarifies, slow and deliberate, like he's talking to a particularly stupid child, and maybe he is, "Light will be immediately executed."

All at once, there's a rush of shouting and voices and his father's indignation, a mild form of chaos erupting, and Light watches it all in bemusement, pulling his legs back under him and resettling down against the curve of L's side, muffling a soft chuckle against his shoulder at L's very put-upon sigh. It's so strange, to have all the adults running about in such a tizzy--have they forgotten who he is already, forgotten how many circles he made them run, how many upstanding FBI agents fell beneath his pen?

"So I'm still getting the death penalty," he says when there's a lull in the roaring, deliberately loud, and it silences everyone at once, except for L, who poked him in the side because he'd spoken right next to his ear. "It's just delayed a little. Nicely played, Ryuuzaki." And it is - it's elegant and lovely in its simplicity, because now he'll have to work to keep him alive, if he wants to save his own skin for as long as he can.

"Thank you," L murmurs agreeably, and he wants to laugh at the blank disbelief painting every face in the room but his own. Why can't they see how beautiful it is? It would be terrible to die without him, terrible to live without him, terrible to be left alone in a world of idiots and fools. A moment's triumph is nothing to an eternity of dancing, and by now he's guaranteed that L will never let him go. It's not exactly his new world as he first imagined it, but Kira's influence will never fade, and history will still call him god.

He is eighteen years old, and already, he's changed the world, so why aren't they proud?

"...Light..." his father says, thin and strained and so _old_ that it smooths his slowly-curling smile back down into a frown.

"Dad, it's only right," he says, lying flawlessly, still halfway draped over L's shoulder, silver handcuffs still binding his wrists, his shinigami still drifting partway through the ceiling, "even if I do regret what happened, the fact remains that I was a serial killer." He drops his gaze low, peeks up through his lashes like a contrite child, and watches his father's face twist in realization, in something that's horror or shame or worse, and wonders when L's prediction will come true. Sayu and his mother will do well with or without his father, he's sure, and they'll certainly do fine without him, so it's just a matter of time and understanding, and his mother is still young enough to move on with a life of her own.

"The most successful serial killer in history, discounting all instances of politically-motivated genocide," L says placidly, and sips his tea, eying Soichiro Yagami with a blank and careless stare that probably contrasts nicely with Light's own sleepy-eyed gaze. He's probably doing it on purpose, and that makes Light smile again, dip his head to brush his lips against his cheek and curl his fingers through his belt loops.

"Ryuuzaki, you can't just--"

"I am sorry your son turned out to be a sociopath," L interrupts swiftly, "life would be much simpler for all of us if he did not have delusions of godhood."

"Not delusions," Light counters just as smoothly, straightening up a little and vaguely wishing for some tea of his own, and because he's feeling petty, he hikes up the blank white shirt and jabs a finger against his side. "I have more devoted followers than you do, Ryuuzaki." He raises his voice just a bit more, pitches his tone just right to hit raw nerves and grate the edges. "Isn't that right, Matsuda?"

At the edge of his peripheral vision, Matsuda freezes up, but he's far more fascinated by the wicked slant of L's smile and the dark gleam in his eyes, six inches and a gaping chasm away.

A delicate clink of china to saucer, but L just reaches for another sugar cube and drops it in the cup. "You toy with your lessers, Light-kun. How cruel."

"You agree that they are my lessers," Light says serenely, leaning back in because he's feeling lazy and content, pleased with the turn of his attention back to where it belongs, "therefore I must be a god."

"Ah, but I am the one to bring you down."

 _Are not,_ Light thinks, but grins fiercely instead, because this is a fun little diversion, and he wants to make sure that the chains on his wrist are the only bindings that will ever hold him. "That makes you Satan."

L waggles a finger at him. "Lucifer was most beloved of the angels."

Light shrugs easily, eying him through his lashes and wondering if he could get away with biting that finger without getting shoved off the couch for it. Probably not, but it might be fun to try. "Even Jesus spent three days in hell."

L quirks a non-existant eyebrow, which makes him look like an idiot. "The human who writes in this note will neither go to heaven nor hell."

Light rolls his eyes and pokes him in the side again. "I'm making a new religion. I'll make a new afterlife as well."

"How arrogant." It's half sing-song, half mockery, three quarters a silver spoon wagging in his face, and he laughs a little, reaches forward and flicks his fingertips through his bangs, spiking them up even wilder than usual.

"You're the one who challenged god," he says, and then pokes him in the cheek, because he can.

"I am an atheist," L retorts, and twirls the spoon in his fingertips and uses the handle to jab him in the side.

Light jabs him back. "Heretic."

"That is why you like me."

"Of course," Light agrees, "Life would be boring otherwise, don't you think?"

"Dreadfully so," L nods, and then pauses to consider the teacup in his hand, before tilting it invitingly in his direction. The contents slosh in a decidedly un-liquid manner, and Light wrinkles his nose in quiet disgust. Flirting is one thing, but even he has his limits.

"Hold. I'm not drinking your tea-flavored sugar, Ryuuzaki."

L frowns at him, a vicious little curve of the lips that Light kind of wants to bite. "Further confirmation that you are Kira."

Light rolls his own. "I already confessed, that doesn't count."

L's eyes narrow. It's kind of terrifying in an appealing sort of way. "It counts."

Light snorts. "Does not. So the points even out, seven to seven, which makes it a tie."

There's an incredulous shout somewhere behind him, or maybe it's in front of him, and he doesn't know what the team is complaining about, they're not talking about _them_ \--what are they all still doing here, anyway, other than cleaning up the rest of the mess that they've left behind because it's not worth doing on their own?

Anyway, it's easy enough to ignore the noise so long as none of them are stupid enough to try and touch them, and no one would dare do that. Not now. Not like this.

"I disagree. Yielding the tea counts as a forfeit."

"The tea was cheating."

"I disagree."

Light snorts, but it's an argument that will just go in circles, so he doesn't bother to respond, just leans over again and takes a not-so-gentle bite at the nearest bit of pale skin he can find. "You are _not_ playing fair."

L's hair tickles his cheek when he tilts his head to the side for a headbutt that is surprisingly gentle. "Unlike you, I never claimed to be."

Light shoves back at him softly, but there's no force in the motion, and he idly wonders what L would do if he broke skin, if he would laugh or smile or kick him in the face, if he would bite him back and tackle him to the ground. "And you still claim to be justice."

"Justice and fairness are two very different things, Light-kun."

"True enough," Light agrees, and settles down against L's side again, listening absentmindedly to the loud chatter in the background--the team is still arguing, he supposes, but they're not brave enough to confront them, not when they're together like this--but mostly listening to the aimless tune L is humming as he sips his tea and slides a fingertip slowly along the join of the handcuffs, back and forth and back again, and it's easy enough to close his eyes again, and let the world fade out from around him.

* * *  
\- 1:22 P.M. -

"Ryuuzaki," he says, half-choked with laughter, as he reads over the new 'official' reports on how they caught Kira, pretty lies spun by a master to mask his own madness, "I think I might be losing my mind."

"I think," L replies, "you already have."

"We're all mad here," Misa quotes softly from her perch beside him, and neither of them should really be surprised by her solid grasp of English, but they are, and even though she's still blindfolded she still reaches out to thwack them both gently on the arms, and neither of them pull away, because she's earned that right.

"Stop treating Misa like she's an idiot," she chides them, "Misa lost more than you ever did, and has better motives than both of you."

"Saving people from--" Light and L begin at the same time, then stop and exchange wary glances, weighing their options, and the conclusion they come to is simple and easy enough to implement.

"--fair's fair," Light says, and they both lean over to press apologetic kisses to her cheeks, and he sighs out loud but doesn't turn away when she deliberately turns her head so that he hits her mouth instead.

* * *  
\- 2:17 P.M -

"Icarus fell."

"No, Light. Icarus _flew_."

"And then he fell."

"Mmm. You're the one who wanted to be a god."

"Wouldn't you have done the same?"

"Unlikely."

"Why is that?"

"I am older than you."

"As if that matters."

"Spoiled son of an upper-middle-class family, what do you know of the world?"

"How rotten it is."

"And how much of it have you seen?"

"You don't have to see it in person to know how it works."

"And that is why justice is blind."

"Aren't you the one who claimed it?"

"So did you."

"I'm not the only one here playing god, Ryuuzaki."

"I never claimed to be anything other than what I am."

"Neither did I."

"Delusions of grandeur, Light-kun."

"Staggering drop in the crime rate, loyal worshipers, and L's attention."

"You're a foolish child."

"And yet here you are."

"A foolish child with some potential for usefulness that outweighs his idiocy."

"Tell me that you love me."

"I love you."

"You're a liar."

"Yes, I am."

* * *  
\- 4:42 P.M. -

He doesn't deserve this - he listened to all the evidence, some that he had helped to collect, and it's bullshit, it's bullshit, he's not the danger to society, society is, and even if he could fit the textbook definition of a sociopath, which he doesn't, L could too.

 _You only win because I let you win,_ he thinks vindictively, and if L's answering smile is just the faintest bit too smug, it only means that he'll hit him for it later all the harder.  


  
"I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"Yes," L murmurs agreeably, watching him with vindictive satisfaction and the faintest of smiles, "you really should have."

* * *  
\- 7:04 P.M. -

"Why not politicians, heads of state?"

"Kira is not an assassin."

"Think of the wars you could have stopped."

Light rolls his eyes. "You're going to lecture me about the sanctity of human life now?"

"Of course not. But crimes against humanity aren't worth Kira's noble attentions?"

Light breathes in slowly, ignoring the thick sarcasm. "I needed heads of state to be on my side - or at least to understand my mission."

"Ah - so a murderer is more worthy of the death penalty than, perhaps, one who orders a genocide."

"Of course not, that's absurd. But it's also too risky to get involved in politics." He narrows his eyes at him. "You of all people know that, L."

"Spoken like a politician. You wrote names in a book, where is the risk there?"

"Kira shouldn't champion any cause other than his own."

"Ah, I see. Light-kun's fatal vanity strikes again."

He glares. "You'll misconstrue anything I say just to annoy me, won't you?"

"But of course."

"I wonder, then, why L only takes on those cases that interest him?"

"Because very many people would like to see L dead, Light-kun included. The last thing I need is more attention."

"Attention from whom? Nobody knows who you are!"

"You do, Kira-kun. You do."

Light leans over and kisses him, because it's true.

* * *  
\- 9:28 P.M. -

Misa's soft and beautiful in his arms, and he sighs and settles his chin against the soft fall of her hair, watches the splay of her fingertips and the fall of black lace against pale pale skin, and thinks of sacrifice and broken things.

Punishment in everything you ever wanted, and there's beauty in that, deeper than anyone can know.

L smiles at him, quicksilver in the dimness, and Light thinks of how very easy it is to die.

He shifts a little, to loop the handcuff chain around the curve of her waist, and watches the sparkle in her ruby-toned eyes, the slow and gentle interest hiding beneath the fall of her lashes in the drag of pale fingers up the length of her arm.

Balance balance balance, because he's in love with a boy and is owned by a girl and she's his love but he's not his, and oh, he's jealous, always will be, for all that they're only ever his.

"Don't you think it's perfect?" Misa whispers, a spark of cruelty in her eyes, and that's beautiful too, more than anything, more than anyone.

"Yes," Light says, "it's perfect."

* * *  
\- 11:37 P.M. -

Misa makes a soft, sleepy noise in the back of her throat, and he pushes back a lock of pale blonde hair and tugs the sheets up higher, even though he's not sure why, because asking for propriety at this point in time is a little more than ludicrous, and maybe...

He makes a soft, surprised noise at the sudden pressure of a pale finger pressed to his parted lips, and stares in silence as L tugs the sheets higher with one free hand, then reaches over and carelessly slips the handcuffs from his wrists.

Light tilts his head just a little and smiles, pitching his voice to a low whisper for the sake of the girl dozing between them. "And our future...?"

"The world is ours," L says agreeably, and here in the darkness and stillness, away from his dreams and the thousands he's tried to save, here with the ones who are all his own, Light smiles and thinks _Let it burn_.

* * *  
\- 3:12 A.M. -

"We can't take you with us," Light says in the quiet, and Misa's grip on his arm bites until there's blood dripping down her nails.

"Misa knows," she whispers softly, pretty and sad and very tired, suddenly. "She knows you have to run away."

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and maybe it's true, maybe he'll miss having her around, maybe he'll miss her devotion and single-mindedness, maybe he'll think about her and wish he had known how to love her. Maybe, someday, never.

"I wish I could go with you."

"I bargained for your freedom, Misa, not for you to be trapped the way I am."

"And what Misa wants doesn't matter."

"Misa..."

"I always knew," she said softly, reaching one little hand up and smoothing an unruly lock of hair back from his cheek, and he imagines the numbers above his head, spinning down into their own form of infinity. "You didn't change for me."

That stings. "Misa, it's not just that-"

"No," she says. "You only changed your mind when you realized what you'd lose if he died. I know I'm not interesting enough to keep your attention."

"Misa--"

"No." One fingertip presses against his lips. "We are getting married this morning, you will spend our honeymoon with me, and tomorrow, you'll leave. But you'll always be mine."

"...what are you saying?"

"Ryuuzaki agreed with me," she said mildly. "One day together with nobody watching but him, then we scatter, and maybe when it's safe again we can be together."

He thinks of the Note in his watch and almost smiles. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

She looks at him for a long moment, calm and still and beautiful. "I'm not inviting Ryuuzaki to join us, Light. Not this time."

Light stares at her, because he doesn't understand this, what about last night wasn't wonderful? But she's talking again, and he has to pay attention to her now, now that she's something vital and important, not a necessary thing but a lovely one, one that he won't let go.

"I told you once I'd kill any girl you tried to date, but he's not a girl and he doesn't love you, so I don't mind that you like him. But you're mine."

He steps closer, wraps his arms around her, presses his lips to her ear. "And if I could think of a way out of this...? Kill him so we could run away together?"

"No." She steps back, and whole hand covers his mouth this time. "I want you to be happy. If he dies, you'll only be happy for a little while. Besides," and she shrugs, a pretty little motion he knows from an ad half-glimpsed on late-night TV, "all the best romances end in tragedy, and he'll kill you when he dies."

Light has to look away then, because she makes him uneasy for reasons he can't explain. "You knew? So... why?"

"Because I love you," she says softly, and for the first time he looks at her and feels very young.

* * *  
\- 12:28 P.M. -

"Misa," he whispers against her hair, "Misa, what's his name?"

In the dark, her eyes are luminous. "His name is L," she murmurs, and pulls him down against her.

* * *  
\- 10:23 P.M. -

Theirs is a strange parting.

He doesn't know if he's fascinated or repulsed when Misa kisses L goodbye, when they curl together like a secret in the dark, and maybe they do know something that he doesn't after all.

Their plan will work. It will be glorious and wonderful and they'll come back to Japan to be with her whenever she calls, when her industry contacts and acting ability will serve their cause, and she'll be safe forever because Rem will never leave her side, and an idol can't just vanish the way Light Yagami must, with a father and a task force that will cover for what they've done, and their disapproval and condemnation will mean nothing, not when they're long gone from this country, not when they're tucked safely behind L's anonymity.

Misa kisses him sweetly, softly, and being parted from her is necessary, but she'll still be his. She'll explain to his father, to the team, and she'll comfort his mother and his sister, because Misa is always loyal, and after all, she's his wife now, a paper signed in secret and sealed with a quick quiet lie, but it's true enough for them, and that's all that matters.

In the dark of the night, Kira and L steal away with each other and all of the data on the case, leaving the second Kira behind to guard their trail.

* * *  
\- Three Months Later -

The voice over the computer is clear and high and young and brash, a match for the bright blond hair and the wild grin on his face. "You caught him?"

"After a fashion."

"Is he still alive?"

"Yes. He'll make a marvelous teaching tool when you're older."

"Why? He's just a serial killer."

"He's a very interesting serial killer. Interacting with him will be beneficial to both of you, especially Near."

"What? Why him?!"

"Because you're better socialized."

Light considers the faces on the monitor, the brilliant blond thing, and the pale, staring creature beside him, and thinks _you cheater_.

When the call is over, he turns L's chair around, leans forward, and asks, "Will you tell them how I won?"

"You did not win," L corrects mildly, "we negotiated."

"Call it what you like, the point remains that I could have killed you."

"Yes," L murmurs, slow and certain, "you could have killed me, but you never would have won."

Light thinks of dark dark eyes and a bright, mad smile, and his lips curl in something that's neither disgust nor admiration. "Your children will be murderers," he says, and it makes his breath quicken when he smiles.

"Yes," L agrees softly, eyes glinting in the dark, "but they'll be mine."

* * *  
\- Fourteen Months Later -

Unexpected, unplanned, but he breathes in deep, pops open the tiny compartment, traces out the letters onto creased notebook paper, and waits.

A man strapped thick with explosives draws out a gothic 'L' on the cement, clutches his heart, and dies, and Light tucks the scrap of paper back into his watch, shifts back into the camera range, and blows the lens a kiss before quietly walking away.

L catches up to him at a church in Shanghai and kicks him straight across the alter, and their reunion is a blissful tangle of limbs behind a barrier of shattered wood and glass while sirens blare and police lights flash like hellfire through the stained-glass windows that pour red light through the darkness that surrounds them.

His lips taste blood and his hands are tangled in ink-black hair and glass shards are pricking his back, and he bites hard at his tongue and whimpers "love you I love you I love you" in every language that he knows, and L holds him down and breathes his name against his ear.

Misa, lounging like a dream in black and silver, laughs at them when they stumble out to the getaway car, and they smear her pretty lace dress with crimson and sawdust and fragments of glass like glitter threaded through her hair.

* * *  
Epilogue  
* * *

Light sits in his chair and watches him watching the world, insulated and secure in their high-rise prison-womb. Light Yagami sips his lukewarm tea and ignores the soft humming of computers in the background, the papers scattered across the table and floor, and the latest missive from Misa, signed with a lipstick kiss, the color of dried blood in the dim light.

He closes his eyes, breathes in, exhales again. Cants his head down, thinks of wild laughter and the smell of burnt leather, thinks of inhuman eyes gleaming scarlet in the darkness. "You are not worth this."

L's smile is so, so cold. "Neither are you."

There's a cake on the table between them. It's eight months old. It's beautiful, frosted and swirled in delicate shades of pink and cream, and its insides have long since liquefied.

They both agree that it's lovely and symbolic and possibly the stupidest thing ever, but L has never touched it, and Light refuses to throw it away.

Sometimes he just stares at his lips, soft and cool and faintly curved as he sips tea and scarfs down cakes and bites at his ragged fingernails.

It's such a pretty mouth.

Every kiss feels like dying.


End file.
